John Piercey

I was born and raised in Wyndham W.A and moved between Perth and Wyndham for the “killing season” where my father worked at the local abattoirs. From a very early age I can remember looking at the local hill, The Bastion, and thinking I’d love to jump/be able to fly off that. I moved back to Kununurra with my wife in 1993 and now live here permanently with my two children.

Fast forward 26yrs and I’d discovered paragliding, a fairly new and exciting sport. This I thought would be the way to go as I had initially planned to get into hang gliding as there were already 5 active pilots flying from the Bastion in Wyndham and Mt Harrison on the start of the Gibb river Rd.

This changed when there was a spate of quite serious accidents and the remaining pilots just sorta vanished. Not to be deterred I booked my self in with the West Australian Paragliding Academy in Perth for a course in July 1997.

My instructor Jiri Hilvaty a very experienced and professional pilot, taught me the basics in the art of inflation and running very fast down hills. This was off the limited and kinda small hills they have around Perth. After gaining my license and purchasing a brand new glider, an Edel Atlas, it was back to Kununurra.

With only one pilot left in town and him not very willing to help a novice with one of this new fangled floppy wing thingies it was up to me to get it happening. With many close calls and scares it finaly came together in 1999 when Jiri came back up to do some tandems and showed me the finer points of paragliding.

Finally catching my first thermal and mini XC I was now well and truly hooked and progressed to a newer and faster wing in 2000. Since then I’ve had a few visiting pilots both interstate and international fly the local sites with nothing but glowing recommendation and an appreciation on how lucky I am to have this all to myself. Well this is good but it’s much better to share with fellow enthusiasts.

I plan on trying to promote this area so I can indeed fly with more like minded pilots, both para and hang gliders, and maybe entice a few of the locals to give “jumping of hills” a go, and indeed see it’s not a crazy and dangerous sport.