Beyond The Invisible + The Journey DVD Combo

Special Greg Hamerton Book + DVD Combo-Pack

Read the book of the film, then watch the film of the book - or vice-versa!

Beyond The Invisible: Flying from Fear to Freedom

A novel by Greg Hamerton

A mystical novel about flying that follows a quest to attain freedom amongst the eagles, high above the South African wilderness.

Beyond The Invisible is a flying story, told from the wing, about setting fear aside in the search for self-mastery and examining how the wonder of flight can change the world we experience.

"A special flying book which examines the metaphysics of freedom and the joy of living like an eagle."

Paperback: 164 pages. Publisher: Eternity Press. Language: English.

ISBN-10: 0958511837
ISBN-13: 978-0958511834

The Journey - A Flying Story DVD

A film by Greg Hamerton

A passionate tribute to free-flying that follows a solo paragliding oddysey into the wildlands of a pilot's soul.

An oddysey of solo flying, venturing deep into the mountains to find what lies beyond. It's a personal expression of freedom by a passionate pilot.

THERE IS ANOTHER WORLD, ABOVE THIS EARTH!

This passionate tribute to free-flying explores the inspiration within one pilot's soul.

Leaving the city behind and heading for the mountains with only a paraglider for company, he begins a journey of transformation which takes him high over the peaks and deep into the wilderness beyond. Can he survive in this aerial realm, where freedom is the only rule?

In the distant deserts he may find the answer, but first he must transcend his nature, and fly ...

An 'Eternity Press' production.

The Journey - A Flying Story DVD > View 60 Second Trailer

Making a DVD is expensive, so movies usually get produced to fill a known market need, in other words, the average TV audience dictates the content. But this production is quite different.  It's made for pilots by a pilot - designed, scripted, filmed, edited, and produced by me with input and support from the Fresh Air Crew. Jo Martin (a pilot) performed most of the great music you'll hear during THE JOURNEY. There's a superb instrumental flying track by Crimson composed especially for this movie. The whole production crew are pilots, most notably my exceptional stunt doubles Ian de Vries and Tracy Hamerton and advisor Nic Good. And I'm extremely grateful to Gradient Paragliders and Capestorm Clothing who believed in the project from the word go and offered their support with gravity-defying wings and kickass gear.

A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR...

The mountains of the Western Cape region are spectacular when viewed from the air. The deeper you go inland, the more risky the flying becomes, but the more liberating the feeling when you escape from the mountains' clutches. And the desert behind the Cederberg is truly breathtaking. I'm sure you'll agree when you see the final scenes of THE JOURNEY. This is my tribute to a special flying region, and it has involved many months of flying, filming and production effort. Filming paragliders doing cross country flying in mountains is frustrating, dangerous work. There's a 'making of' documentary on the DVD which is aptly titled THE EPIC. I'm overjoyed that the project is almost complete, and to see that the sacrifice has been worth it.

I hope you support this 'made for pilots' production.

Thanks, and fly far, wherever you are...

Greg Hamerton, Cape Town, March 2008

Reviews...  

Paul Winter, Out There Travel Magazine

"If you have any trace of 'free spirit' in you, get yourself a copy. For paragliders, the descriptive passages on flying will have you tingling with excitement. The only time I put this book down was to get stuck into my own adventures - with more zeal and purpose than I would have before reading it."

Simone Williams, editor, Constantiaberg Bulletin: 

"Read one page and you'll crave to join Greg on the mountain tops and breathe in the crystal clearness of infinity. It's the book to carry everywhere, or escape to during a lunch-hour break from the mundane."

Richard Grant, pilot and physics lecturer, Rhodes University 

I have often thought it would be impossible to write a novel with paragliding as its central theme without it degenerating into a string of hackneyed phrases and clichés. It seems to me there would be only so much one could say about the wonders of paragliding or the joys of free flight without becoming repetitively boring - and that would be long before filling a book. Adding a story line as well, would, I thought, just be a thin excuse to add more clichés.

Well, I was wrong, and Greg's book proves it. I laughed and cried as I read 'Beyond the Invisible'. I wish I'd written it. I wish I'd written some of it. I wish I'd written any of it. So much of what is expressed struck powerful chords with my own memories and thoughts on my personal experiences of paragliding, right from the beginning to the present day. 

I know Greg to be a mystical sort of chap, but I didn't realise he could write poetry like that, and so much of it, and so appropriately in context. Yes, the book does have a story line, but it adds to and blends cleverly with what he has to say about his own passion for paragliding. Even the route the story took and the ending kept me guessing. There is nothing trite or simplistic about it at all. I imagine this must be Greg's first major publication. It came as a wonderful surprise to find how easy Greg's prose is to read and how well it flows, and in my opinion how very well written it is. I found I could own Greg's book, and hold it, and realise that it was written by one of us. There was plenty in there for me and I am sure there is plenty for anybody moved by the gifts of Nature, not just us paraglider pilots.

Get a copy of Greg's book and read it! I think that just as for Tolkein's 'Lord of the Rings', the free-flying community of the future and everyone else for that matter is going to be divided into those who have read Greg's book and those who haven't. Thank you Greg for giving paragliding such a beautiful gift. 

Joe Schofield, editor of Skywings Magazine, UK 

A paragliding novel? Come off it! No, really, it's true. Greg Hamerton is a South African pilot and instructor, and he's written a flying book! Only in some respects it's as much about flying as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was about motorbikes - and in fact has a little of that book's flavour of self examination and discovery.

The book's sub-title - Flying from fear to freedom - gives the game away. It's the story of the narrator's actual and metaphysical journey towards a state of more profound understanding of this earth and of himself. Much of the journey is accomplished by flying, but much more by our seeker confronting his fears and breaking through them to discover the truths they contain. A number of encounters along the way each lead to deeper enlightenment, not least with a strange, semi-mystical, all-knowing fellow who drops big but sometimes unfathomable hints about the true meaning of life (shades of Richard Bach's Illusions here - it's no coincidence that Hamerton's company is called the Illusion Project). Also encountered, among other creatures, are the Sink Monster and a number of telepathic eagles, good pilots all, with whom our hero becomes ever more closely engaged.

This kind of all-the-world's-an-instruction-manual self discovery book is not new, and some of its aphorisms - 'You hold the key to change and freedom in your hands'; 'The answers are all out there, you just need to discover the questions'; Expect miracles!' - have a very familiar ring, but this is the first book by a free flier to attack such a delicate subject area. Hamerton's prose is nicely turned - some of his descriptive passages about actual flying are so sharp you can almost hear the fabric rustle above you - and his settings - Bulwer, Dasklip, etc, are at once familiar and enticing. Even if you're not bent on self-discovery, it's well enough written to hold your interest on flying alone, and (as free flying novels are about as rare as a gold-plated karabiner) it's hard to find a good reason not to examine it.

My verdict is full marks to Greg Hamerton for confronting his own fears and writing this book. It's perhaps a little over long, and occasionally repetitive, but the flying stuff is well done and the every-weakness-is-a-strength philosophy is by no means too hard to take and often uplifting. Whatever you keep in your harness for waiting-for-a-retrieve reading, get through it quick and substitute Beyond the invisible. You may not get to heaven, but for those lonely hours when your batteries have gone flat, it's the business.