Balloon Flight

I had a wonderful day today.  Karyn bought me a balloon flight for Christmas, so it seemed a good idea to use it during the Canberra balloon festival.

The only downside was that we had to be down at the lake in front of Old Parliament House by 5:45AM.  It was still dark.   After signing the usual disclaimers that said it would be our own fault if we landed in the lake and drowned or hit powerlines and electrocuted ourselves, we helped inflate the balloon.

After laying out the balloon, two big fans were used to partially inflate the balloon while lying on its side.  They they turned on the gas burners that heated the air and caused the balloon to lift.

We had to get onboard quickly to stop it drifting away.  The ladder is for some old folks who couldn't climb in.  I had no problem. The basket held 12 people.

Surprisingly, as we lifted off and drifted West, there was no sound and no wind.  The basket didn't sway at all, so I reckon and even nervous fliers would be OK with it.  Until they had to land, of course ....

When I say no sound, I mean that there was no sound other then the occasional roar of the gas burners going off....

It gets quite hot when the flame is on,  which is why they recommended that we wear a cap to minimise the heat on our heads.  Maybe to stop your hair catching fire, I reckon.

There were panoramic views in all directions.  It was a pity that there were clouds above us - it would have been spectacular if the sun had been shining.  But then you can't been picky - last year Matt and I went to see the massed balloon launch and it was cancelled because there was no wind, and then the next day is was cancelled again because there was too much wind.

After a while we drifted out over the countryside.  It was unbelievable how dry everything was - once you moved away from the roads into the fields, all the grass disappeared until all you could see was bare dirt and dried up water holes.  I took the pictures below, they seem unreal, but that's exactly what the landscape looked like.  Lots of dead trees, a few greeen ones, and everything else a light brown clay.  It's probably been about 6 weeks since we had any substantial rain.

While our pilot kept us high in the sky, a few like to take a more risky path.  Apparently the daredevils like to try and skim over the water.  Some seem to like bouncing into other balloons.

Eventually we had to land.  The only problem were the power-lines that needed to be avoided. We landed in a paddock filled with thistles and waited until the ground crew arrived.  The pilot then  put some more head into the balloon so that the ground crew could walk us out of the thistles.

The reason for this is that we had to collapse and repack the balloon ready for tomorrow's flight and the thistles could cause problems.  We had thought that they moved us out of the thistles for the convenience of the passengers !