Friday, January 17, 2014

Do Eagles Dare?

The name of my blog was inspired by a 1968 classic World War II movie entitled "Where Eagles Dare". It was an action movie shot on location in the snowy mountains of Austria and Bavaria featuring movie greats James Bond actor Roger Moore, Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood.

I remember watching the movie as a kid and being awestruck and terrified by the amazing scenery of the fortress set between the craggy mountain tops with a cable car, being the only way to get to the fortress. A death-defying fight scene saw Roger Moore jumping from one cable-car to the other as they passed each other high above the abyss below where only eagles dared to fly.

Within two days of my PPL licence being issued I was winging my way on our first long trip to Cape Town, via the Klein Karoo mountains around Joubertina near Port Elizabeth. 8 500 ft was the highest I had ever been in our plane and those mountains certainly looked death-defying as we crossed and then descended into the rain and diverted to Plettenberg Bay for a stop-over until the weather cleared. So yes, eagles do dare to go up and over the mountain tops in a little tin can with wings! The adventure continues...

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