Teston Mini Festival 2009

Tradition has it that Teston has almost no wind. June 2009 was to keep up this fine tradition. Actually that's unfair as Saturday was quite a good day for wind. Unfortunately my rig was at home.

Sunday was typical Teston, very little wind, lots of thermals and glorious sunshine. But for a little while in the afternoon, there was enough wind to launch the maxi Dopero and get a camera aloft. I needed to fly the kite as it had been lying on the ground for most of the day, and was therefore soaked. A launch and a couple of shakes made sure that Janet and Gerty got a shower before we headed up into the sky. Having confirmed there was sufficient lift to carry the rig, I brought the kite down and set up the rig. Ready to fly again, I put the camera on the line and off we went. But soon I had tangled with a Flying Empress squid. The dopero did a big loop in the sky. Looking closely I saw that the kites weren't tangled, but I had got under his line so walked the kite down a bit. Although the squid was being flown by quite a young lad, he was experienced and we soon separated lines and went our own way.

So time to get aloft. With 500ft clearance, it was easy to get plenty high enough to get some decent general shots of the area. This one shows the campers and overflow carparks, and lots of kites, most of them on the ground!



From this height, I also managed to get a good shot of the bridge, and guess what, It was perfectly framed - no cropping required!