Photography: Getty
Well, when you’re being dragged along the ground and scraping your face on the rocks, you’ll know why you shoulda bought the full-face helmet…” Phil Barron was on the phone to a fellow would-be paraglider in the hills above Dungiven, Northern Ireland, and he was sort of joking. It wasn’t the sort of joke I needed to hear, however.
During the roughly 50-minute drive from Belfast to the hills from where Phil operates most of his commercial tandem flights, thefirst line of a famous poem by Irishman W B Yeats had been on repeat in my head: “I know that I shall meet my fate, somewhere among the clouds above…”
I knew it was irrational, as with the right tuition and proper guidance, paragliding is statistically a pretty safe sport, but still… Drifting at a thousand feet above the ground, supported by nothing more than a large pillowcase? Madness.
The directions weren’t overly detailed: “Down the Glenshane Pass, straight for a mile or so, turn right at a perspex bus shelter and go up the hill.”
This is a fairly empty area of Ireland, like a no-man’s land midway between Belfast and Derry. The Glenshane Pass is one of the highest roads in the country, cutting a swathe through a barren but beautiful land of greenfields, hill farms and heather.
Miraculously, I arrived at the right place. A narrow country lane ended in a steeply slopingfield, at the entrance of which were parked three or four cars and above which sailed three or four enormous kites, with a pair of legs dangling 10m below each of them.
That’s the main difference between paragliding and hang-gliding, as far as I could tell. With hang-gliding your legs are wrapped up behind you like a chrysalis and parallel to a small sail. With paragliding, you sit upright in splendid comfort and drift beneath a huge kite. It’s an armchair ride, especially if you’re in a tandem, when someone else has to do all the work.
Well, not quite all the work… When I arrived, Phil dumped an absolutely enormous rucksack on the ground at my feet. I wondered whether he was using it for people trafficking – it could easily have housed a family of illegal immigrants. It actually contained the harnesses, helmets, gloves and cables we’d need, and I was to carry it up the hill. Phil, meanwhile, was hauling what looked like an enormous folded handkerchief that was the sail.
The tandem take-off is a little more complex than the single person take-off. The instructions were simple enough: Face up the hill. Run. Shuffle around down the hill. Run. Take flight.
Unfortunately, our effort panned out more like this: Face up the hill. Attempt to run. Trip. Face-plant. Get dragged over the heather.
The second attempt was better, but after a disorientating spin, I lost my bearings.
“Run!” shouted Phil. “Which way?!” I asked, in confusion.
“Forward!” shouted Phil, in frustration.
Five seconds later my pants were pulled up ’round my ears and we were airborne. My feet were hanging below me and I felt like I was back in First Year, in my school changing rooms, with the Sixth Years perfecting their wedgie techniques. Then Phil literally kicked me into the harness and suddenly I was floating in armchair comfort along the side of a steep ridge, before being gently lifted up higher in the breeze.
It was magical. Phil positioned us with the thermals and we gently rose higher and higher. I could hear the music from the end of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, when the Great Glass Elevator is flying above the city. Below us a buzzard scoured the grass forfield mice and crows dive-bombed each other and hurtled through the air in a series of acrobatic manoeuvres. Phil says they carry on like stunt pilots in rough wind, just for their own amusement. He spends a fair part of his working day up with the birds, so he should know.
The paragliders kept in touch with CB radios, reporting cloud movement, the position of thermals, etc. These radios come in handy when they’re forced to “go cross-country,” as Phil put it. This is when the wind conditions prevent landing back at the starting point.
A thousand feet up, hanging from a large sail, you really are in the hands of the gods. If they decide your flying time is up, you’ll be landing pretty much wherever they decide to drop you, which means a begging call on the CB radio for a lift back to base. They’re a fairly understanding bunch, the other paragliders, so nobody gets stranded. A fairly eclectic bunch too – the Northern Ireland club includes a salsa dance-instructing doctor who takes to the air with a catheter so he can stay up all day…
With no catheters of our own, Phil and I dropped back in afield beside where we’d launched after an hour of serene drifting and sightseeing. Among the clouds above, I thankfully hadn’t met my fate, but I did enjoy a glimpse of heaven.
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A Flying Start
Cloud Surfer Ireland (www.cloudsurferireland.com), Phil Barron’s commercial tandem paragliding school, offers an introductory flight for £80 (lasting 45 minutes – sometimes longer – and including temporary membership to the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association); double sessions for £135, and a whole day with multiple flights for £200. Most flights take place around the Dungiven area, an hour’s drive from Belfast, on the main Derry road.
For the trivia experts among you, Dungiven is also the home of teenager Eoghan Quigg, X Factor finalist in 2009.
About 10 minutes from one of Phil’s flying spots, at the highest point of the Glenshane Pass, you’ll find the Ponderosa Bar (974 Glenshane Road, Dungiven; tel: +44 (0)28 7774 1987, www.btinternet.com/~highestpub) which, at more than 300m, is Northern Ireland’s highest pub and is mentioned in a number of books, including the award-winning novel Harry’s Game by Gerald Seymour.
