The shadow of the approaching wave cloud appeared, rapidly crossing the salt flats towards the kites. The cloud looked awesome, a mile high, two miles from leading to trailing edge and stretching over each horizon. Secondary waves followed the prima­ry at regular intervals, but only the primary had the towering form of a travelling white moun­tain range.

At 6.20 a.m., I called Go Go Go over the radio and a hun­dred metres in front the Rotax roared . Seconds later the Blade lifted off the dolly into velvet smooth air. Trike and glider climbed towards the leading edge of the wave at a steady 300 feet per minute. When we reached 1200' a kilometre in front of the cloud, the climb rate sud­denly improved to 700 up, then 1000 up. At 2500' I pulled the release and Bolto dived away to land and tow C-Mac, who was waiting ready set up further inland on the salt flats. Within minutes, C-Mac too was climbing in wave lift on the leading edge of a moving wall of cloud.

This moment was the product of Months of planning, organising, researching, experimenting and persuading. The southern coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria is apparently the only place in the world where propagating wave clouds occur predictably. They appear in the morning around October and satellite photos show them stretching many hundreds of kilometres across the Gulf and beyond.

Sailplanes have been flying them since 1989 when Russell White made the first soaring flight in a Grob 109 motorglider. However, no one had soared them in a hang glider before and when I spotted an article in C­Mac's "Australian Gliding" magazine (May 1995), the idea was born. I caught C-Mac at an unguarded moment and asked him, `Do you want to try soaring these things?' "Ohhhhhh yeah!' he said. Billo and PK were quickly recruited and we set about enlisting the knowledge and services of others. Rick Duncan at AirBorne contributed equipment and advice, and suggested Chris Bolton as a trike pilot.

The terrain around the Gulf is notably flat and ideal for towing. Car towing however would be of limited use in catching a wave because of the precise timing required. Bolto likes a challenge and was only slightly intimidated at the thought of a mile-high travel­ling wave. So it was that he had the honour of being the first trike pilot to fly up to the Morning Glory. Russell White was cautiously encouraging but emphasised the possible con­sequences of being forced to fly through the wave in an aircraft too slow to escape it. None of us had any intention of being caught in the rapidly rotating centre of the wave cloud.

After releasing, I climbed in icy smooth linear lift to 5000' and explored the wave.

Within minutes I decided that this was not a tiger I held by the tail but a pussycat by the scruff of the neck. The sun rose between the cumuliform tops at the trailing edge of the cloud and I flew back to them to take pho­tos and revel in the moment. This was how the tiger caught me. Turning back to face the direction of^, travel of^, the wave, I noticed the cloud rising towards me and realised that I was in horizontal air over the flat rear part of the cloud. Despite full VB and speed bar to the knees, the cloud continued to rise against  the horizon, and I sealed all exits as Burketown disap­peared at 2500'. It was a fairly wild ride through the spinning air in the centre of the cloud but the Blade popped out intact ten minutes later from its base, and I landed uneventfully at Burketown airstrip for a quick change of underwear. The first hang glider flight on the Morning Glory had lasted just thirty minutes and provided some use­ful lessons.

C-Mac meanwhile had climbed to 7500' after being warned over the radio not to slip back over the rear half of the cloud. He pointed his glider perpendicular to the wave and headed straight out over tiger country. `It's alright', he said on the UHF, `There's a clearing about forty kilometres ahead'. At three hours and twenty minutes he landed at Adel's Grove airstrip, a distance of 165 kilometres without turning, and had to burn altitude to get down as the serious tiger country started. The day's thermals were just beginning as the cloud evaporated. It was celebration time, and Bolto and I breakfasted on VB at the Burketown pub as Billo and PK started the long retrieval drive.

Next day, Billo, PK and 1 were set up on the saltflats at dawn. The Morning Glory rolled in right on time and Bolto towed PK out over the Gulf to meet the wave. PK found the lift band to be narrow and bumpy at release height but it soon smoothed out as he climbed in steady lift around 500 up. Billo was set up about ten kilometres further inland and had an easier ride up as PK watched from above. Then PK saw the trike appear from under the cloud with the third glider on tow from ten kilometres further inland again. The Edge had to fly out from beneath the Glory as it was already overhead when I was picked up. This cloud was not a strong one like the previous day's, but a regular Glory, shaped like a kilometre-high cylinder with a flat base, stretching from horizon to horizon and with half a dozen secondary waves following the primary at intervals of a few kilome­tres. Cloud was being formed on the leading edge of the wave, mov­ing up over the top and disappearing as it descended the trailing edge, so that the Glory appeared to be rolling backwards as it advanced over the landscape.

The three Blades climbed to 5000' and cruised effortlessly in smooth air, a little faster than best glide. The shadow of the Glory was thrown ahead and appeared to be engulfing the landscape as the wave advanced. There are not many roads around Burketown (popu­lation 230 on a good day, next town 200 corrugated kilometres away) but there is a road running SSW to Camooweal. Since the Morning Glory appears from the NE and travels to the SW, this is a good road to follow. You would not want to get lost in the bush around Burketown, as you could stay lost for rather a long  time. A little traversing along the face of the cloud kept the gliders within easy reach of the road. Billo and PK raced around the cloud play­ing games and whooping it up. There is something about the wave which turns hardened old sky­surfers into delighted kids.

Two hours into the flight, at about 100 km, we noticed the cloud shadow becoming thinner and gaps started to appear in it. The secon­daries too started to disappear. Ten minutes later the cloud evaporated into haze and light turbulence. The cloud is trapped recirculating moisture picked up by the wave from the Gulf of Carpentaria, but as it travels inland over the dry terrain, moisture is lost and the cloud even­tually vanishes. The wave continued inland like a clear air seabreeze front, but without the visible reference of the Glory, we could not track the lift. Just before it vanished, however, the cloud increased its speed and the lift improved, so that we climbed in ten minutes from 4,300' to 5,500' with the rope full on and the bar to the waist.

Gregory Downs with its pub and swim­ming hole lay just 10 km away, an easy glide with the persisting tailwind. Billo and PK landed in front of the pub to discover that after their longest flights, the pub was not yet open. They had covered 120 km in 2 hours 20 minutes without turning other than cir­cling down to land. Meanwhile I flew on past Gregory by switching to thermal lift, and in light plentiful cores triggered by the wave, continued to the edge of the Barkly Tableland. Here the savannah grassland and light scrub becomes a little more tigrous, and I landed on the edge of the red-soiled Barkly for 150 km in three hours. There was a steady 20 knot nor'-easter blowing to show that the wave had arrived. Cumulus clouds started to pop as I packed up by the road. C­Mac was in close pursuit with the 4WD.

On the following day, the Morning Glory appeared again at sunrise but it was a dry day and the clouds evaporated as they crossed the coastline. Bolto towed us up to where we thought the waves might be but we could not track the invisible linear lift for more than a few minutes. We left Burketown later that day for the bumpy 1000 km trip to Cairns.

This expedition would not have happened without the assistance of many people and organisations. Three however really stand out. Russell White, the Sydney sailplane pilot who has soared the Morning Glory first, provided comprehensive information, first hand knowl­edge and many useful suggestions. AirBorne provided a dolly, a bal­listic 'chute for the trike and sensible advice based on long experi­ence. And Chris Bolton was the trike pilot who was the man for the job, and who was not daunted by the prospect of flying up to an unknown quantity any sane pilot would want to fly far away from. Thanks guys!

The four Morning Glory soarers were Chris MacDonald, Paul Kennedy, Bill Olive and A1 Giles.

Next month, the `how-to's of flying the Morning Glory