HangglideOz — Attraction in Wollongong City Council

Bald Hill, Stanwell Park overlooks Wollongong beaches and the Grand Pacific Drive. I went there with a few friends on a road trip exploring natures’ adventures. A popular place for hang gliders to take off with winds from the southeast. A secondary location further south in Wollongong at Hill 60 if the winds are from the northeast.

Hang Glide Oz offer tandem (or instruction flight) that last for around 30 minutes, during which the passenger (that’s me) is able to have a go at flying the glider – all under the strict supervision from Tony Armstrong. What an exhilarating ride, soaring through the sky with a magnificent birds-eye view of the Grand Pacific Drive, the coastal escarpment and the Royal National Park. With winds speeds from 12-25 knots is key to a great glide.

Your instructor will assist through all the red-tape, briefing and safety harness check prior to take off. Taking off was different to what I expected, as I thought we would have to do a running jump. “Was I wrong”, it is simply taking that first step off the cliff, “a leap of faith”, holding on and enjoy the uplift exhilaration of the wind, carrying you up. Amazing!

We are now high above the trees, the people below growing smaller and I can see across the ocean, the Grand Pacific Drive and the Royal National Park scenery beyond. It feels a little unnatural to be holding onto Tony with my body suspended by a sling attached to the glider. I am a human kite. Tony explains to me how the glider works, shows me how to turn and we talk about how long he has been hang gliding. I am comfortable, oddly not at all scared, just peacefully enjoying the incredible views.

I feel weightless as we spend some time taking some turns and going faster as we descend on a dive and pull the glider up.

The experience left me with a true sense of adventure, and I made some friends along the way. I enjoyed getting to know Tony and the hang gliders I met at Hang Glide Oz, everyone involved there has a real passion for the sport that is truly contagious. It was definitely an experience that I will remember for a long time and one of Wollongong’s favourite things to do.

It’s an empowering feeling to push back fear, something that makes you feel like you can do anything. That’s something that you would love to experience.

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Beware of this company if, as a paying customer, you like to treated with basic respect and courtesy. Tony may be a good hang glider, but unfortunately does not seem to have any qualms about being rude and abusive to customers who, in his eyes, have not done things quite the ‘right’ way. There was a misunderstanding about who would call who on the day about whether the flight would go ahead. There were reasons for this, including a not unreasonable expectation that a hang gliding business would do its customers the courtesy of contacting them when a decision had finally been made not to fly because of weather. (Apparently too difficult for HangglideOz .. but not other companies.) Irrespective of who was right or wrong here, any company with a genuine commitment to treating its customers well would not have indulged in the kind of rudeness and abuse that Tony felt free to dish out on two separate occasions. Incredibly unimpressive … and not a company that I or any of my friends or family would consider...

My girlfriend and I are in NSW for a week and I saw this hang gliding company on the map. I missed an opportunity to go last month and was super stoked to see they had it here. I reached out to Tony via text the night before and he got back to me pretty quickly. He was able to work with us on the price a bit for a shorter flight and got us all set pretty informally which was nice given the last minute nature of the request.

Tony is a great guy and straightforward with you. It can be pretty scary running off the side of a cliff with something that looked like it was just a tent in a bag just 20 minutes prior, but he gave us the comfort we needed to take on the challenge.

The flight was AMAZING. This is a beautiful place to hang glide and I am sure Tony even have us extra time on our flight. Tony made our first hang gliding experience a total success and for a...