I believe I can fly...

Last week I was invited to try out Para - Motoring, what's that you may well ask? Well the official explanation of Para-Motoring by my new friends at Parapax is "It’s a James-bond like, amazing way to paraglide. Foot launching from the ground, or by trike. Tandem flights on a PPG mean we can takeoff and fly nearly anytime and from a lot of great places. The bonus of Powered flight is the fact that we are much surer we can spend time in the air. It takes us 5 – 10mins to get ready to launch, and even less to pack up again afterwards. Powered paragliding (ppg) is the most incredible way to fly!" Ok; so that's the expert take on it, now not being much of a James Bond type myself I really wasn't that sure if this was for me, but hy ho you only live once so what the hell ...

Arriving at the Chucker Sports field, Stef the owner of Parapax was already in the air on a solo flight. Watching him from the ground it all looked very easy. On spotting us arrive he finished off his flight and made a graceful landing. Stef has an uncanny way of relaxing a person with his quick humor and obvious experience.  He also moves at the speed of light. Before I could find a sensible reason to chicken out I was harnessed up and ready to fly. (P.S I found out afterwards he is also a hypnotist ) - maybe that explains how I found myself standing inside a small frame with Stef yelling "run forest run" - lol.

Stef Checking my harness

Once all the kit was checked by Stef he explained to me how we were going to take off. Not the most elegant of maneuvers I might add, and hellish on the legs as we had little to no wind. But after three attempts and plenty of hard work by Stef, my feet left the ground and we were airborne. Now the cool thing about para motoring is that with an experienced pilot like Stef at the controls you can pretty much direct exactly where and how high you want to fly. Nice! Within minutes I found myself relaxing and enjoying the view, its the strangest thing, my sensible mind was screaming "what the ... your not a bird woman" but there was another little voice saying " this is awesome! don't land"

High as a kite!

After about 10 minutes of buzzing around Stef switched off the engine to give me a taste of what Paragliding feels like. It was very different, the only sound I could hear was the light wind (and my own heart pounding like a sledge hammer) If I had to compare the two, I would say Para-Motoring was the more controlled but noisy experience and Paragliding the more natural experience, if that makes any sense.

All too soon we were heading for our landing, which I must say I was dreading. I had nothing to worry about as we came to a soft, pain free stop on Terra Firma.

The grin on my face was now wrapping round my ears and I felt like I could run a marathon, however my legs had the consistency of jelly so that wasn't going to happen any time soon. I felt a mixture of relief and exhilaration, but mostly I felt very alive.

Will I do it again - hell yes, in fact I am going the whole hog next time with a Paragliding experience off of Lions Head. To answer Stef's question "Wanna get high?" Ah yes please, see you on Lions Head dude.

Thanks Stef and Parapax for an awesome experience