HYthe Town Festival

Cars, originally uploaded by Pitprops.

Well it was hot and sunny for day one of the Hythe town festival. Day one typically starts with "Free on the Green" where all the activites are funded by sponsors. The only real blot on the landscape was the English fotball match at 4pm. What would happen to the crowds?

Well we arrived at about 11am, and I quickly got the focus rok in the air and hung some spikey balls and a pig from it. Then we set about getting the teddy dropping rig aloft and bunged a few experimental bears. All seemed to be going well. You can see fromt he phot, we were positioned just across the footpath and the wind was blowing favourably down the field, so we had a large area to play with. As the wind was almost perfect, Steve decided to spend some "quality time" with his Akuji.

After the burger lunch, I decided to take the laundry off the rok and fit a camera to it, and take it for a walk around the field. Well it was going to be a tough assignment as the wind was light to nothing, but we had to try. However one of the harder coming to grounds managed to dislodge the camera just enough so that the shutter release servo was no longer operating the shutter. Completely oblivious, I carried on clicking away until the transmitter battery failed. Bringing the rig safely to earth was tricky as I was flying in a gap between the Drake & Fletcher new Mazda stand, and all of the classic and kit cars. I didn't think anyone would be too impressed if I landed my camera rig on them, but we got down safely.

The afternoon was busy bunging bears for the children. Apparently a number had been looking forwards to the experience all week. We managed to place one bear in the hedge at the far end of the field. If you know Hythe, you'll get some idea of how far he travelled. We almost had one roman candle, but his chute deplyed in the nick of time. And once again the focus rok was doing sterling service, as by now we had swapped it for the original lifter kite as I had more height.

Good day, good fun, and an hour or so of sports kite flying to end the day, followed by fish and chips. Who could ask for more?