JP'23 - Iriki, Miyata

 Last flying day here on Kyushu

sunrise over Sakurajima

Rick had proposed we'd go to Iriki in the morning and in the afternoon to Miyata-yama. For both sites he had provided us with contacts as well. We reached Iriki from Kagishima (KOJ) after an hours drive. Here we met Maita-san, who showed us the (new) LZ and then launch. As it was still too early to fly we made a short visit to Lake Imuta.

Lake Imuta: tea plantation

Finally conditions looked fine and after a good reverse launch ;-) I could quickly climb above launch and enjoy the view over the tops towards Lake Imuta. Actually conditions have been so good, that most probably launching 30 minutes earlier would also have been possible without the risk of sinking out ;-)

Iriki: huge, perfectly groomed launch with toilets etc

Lake Imuta

the not so easy LZ...

After having packed up we drove East to Miyata-yama. Unfortunately we had lost quite some time 'along the way': by taking-off rather late, flying too long at Iriki and getting misled twice by Google Maps... So when we finally arrived at the LZ, everybody had already left and it had been up to us to figure out who to reach launch. Once more Google Maps has been no help at all. Luckily my 20 year old Garmin 76CSx with OSM maps showed us the way.

Miyata-yama

All in all this had taken up so much time that conditions had weakend, that by the time I was ready, all I could do was a sledder top to bottom...

LZ

looking back to launch

'Farewell' Sushi dinner with Yuko