Dear Mr Da Vinci...' 

or 

'When hanging from70ft on a kite and discovering how hard the ground could be'

It was the ultimate idea we had had as kids. Can’t remember whose idea it was, but it was probably around the time we were into reading about Leonardo Da Vinci and his many brilliant ideas, and having some access to scrap timber and such materials. The idea of jumping from the roof with a sheet, aiming for the temporary swimming pool (see earlier blog entry) was low down on the list of dangerous ideas in comparison. We had a ‘Great’ idea. Lets make a flying wing! So after much discussion and rapidly drawn plans, no physics involved, (we were too young to have started learning that!), just sheer enthusiasm (the same enthusiasm that got us into many situations), we started building our ‘Super Kite’.

We managed to get some narrow square timber lengths that we were allowed to cut up. Weight? It didn’t matter did it? We were making a kite and the cloth would keep us air-borne. The Da Vinci book we were referring to for directions was for young readers, so I guess it was their fault for not including that information, information which may have prevented the following disaster.

Understanding that even with a ‘Super Kite’ the park wouldn’t be suitable as a launching place we would need some serious height to get started… a run up.

It just so happened that at the end of the valley where we lived at the time had a native reserve, ‘Bethunes Gully’, and just as the name suggests it ran about a kilometre up to the head of the valley, a gully with high side cliff walls about 70 feet above the creek running through and dense bush along the edges of the creek below. Perfect!

So not having access to a car (our family never owned one) and with several pieces of manufactured super kites hanging from various sides of our bicycles, we, the  prospective aeronauts slowly made our way North up the valley. (for the rest of this story refer to the date and time of the entry – real blog will be after midday)