Friends, I’ve been dragging my feet on this blog entry and the only reason I can come up with is this entry has so many COOL photos I’d like to load and this site has become a pain to load photos on. I finally stopped putting it off and sat down to type it out.
Back on Australia day, January 26th Iral and I had one very busy day. We awoke at 3:30am and placed a call to the balloon pilot for the final confirmation that our ride was taking place. We had one weather delay just before leaving for Cairns but today Mother Nature graced us with a beautifully clear day. We met the shuttle vans and the other passengers at the Hilton hotel near the central business district at 5:15am.
Once everyone had filled out the health and safety forms we jump in the 12 seater van and set off for Yarra Bend Park, northeast of town. Arriving at the launch site just as the first faint rays of light started to illuminate the sky. You could see the giant fruit bats heading back to the tree tops. It was a chilly morning and most people brought light jackets but not yours truly. I braved the dampness and 55 degrees with just a t-shirt. The pilot and his assistant soon put us to work unpacking the balloon anyway. The basket was a lot bigger and heavier than I imagined. It always looks so tiny way up in the sky. The wicker sides are about 4’ high and has a few foot holes in one end to help you climb into it. There are 3 compartments, one interior wall is parallel with the short side containing the fuel and pilot. The other wall down the centre of the long side split the basket into 2 areas for passengers. Once the balloon was laid out and attached to the basket our pilot, Nick, started to fill it with cool air. I was asked to hold on to a 150’ long rope attached to the top end and try to hold it down as long as I could. There were 2 other big guys with me and I thought more than once the balloon was going to lift me into the air with it. We had been asked to do this to inflate the balloon as much as possible before it was completely upright and at the point where we started heating the air inside it.
Once the balloon was fully inflated we all climbed in and got ready for takeoff. There were 3 groups of about 10 passengers each taking off this morning with Global Ballooning. Ours was the first to leave the ground. I never really felt anything as we started to rise above the earth. There was just this realization that “Oh, we’re going up!” Immediately the views of the city and the sun rise take your breath away. There’s no breeze at all since we moved with the wind. The only sounds you here is the chatter on the radio of Melbourne’s air traffic control tower, the talking of the other passengers and the occasional burning of fuel to keep us aloft. The flame is about 1.5 meters long (4’ +) and the heat from it feels like it’s scorching your head. I was very glad I brought at hat. We floated along effortlessly on a smooth current of air. There are really no other words to describe the feeling so I let the photos entertain you for a minute. Of which we took almost 300 in the 3 hours the whole encounter took. You can go to my facebook page to see more.
We stayed in the air for about 75 minutes circling around the eastern side of the city. We would rise to about just under a kilometre (3000’). Then slowly float to a lower elevation, turning from a valley/mountain view to the awesome site of Melbourne’s skyline. Finally the time came to land and we skimmed the tree tops of Faulkner Park about 8km (5 miles) from where we started. Just as with set up the passengers are expected to help deflate and pack away the balloon. With all hands on deck this didn’t really take very long and we were back at the hotel by 8:30.
Over all the experience was SPECTACULAR! Our pilot told us we had a perfect day for flying. I highly recommend it to everyone. (Grandma, you’re not too old! Mom, I’ll send some money to help) Even if you have height issues you should do this. It was worth the money and I’ll be looking for another place to do this again.
From there Iral and I headed into the city to meet my friends in the Melbourne Rainbow Band to march in the Australia day parade. Think of 4th of July without the fireworks. A quick change of outfit in the car on the way over, a snack for breakfast and warm up the lips then stand around and wait for the parade to start. In the formation area there are all kinds of groups of people proud and honouring their Australian citizenship. Thai, Greek, Italian, Pilipino along with armed forces people. The premier of Victoria (governor) speaks for a while. A f16 flies over head and the parade steps off. We walk the 4 city blocks over the Yarra River and quickly pack it all up to head to Mt Macedon. An hour’s drive northwest of town to a private residence to perform for the JOY FM 94.9 (gay radio station here) fundraiser picnic. These are both events the band does every year and our host out at Mt Macedon is one of the band’s benefactors. We perform a set break for lunch while the Melbourne Gay and Lesbian chorus performs and then do a 2nd set afterwards. By the time we load all the band equipment back into Tommy the Tank and get back to town it’s just after 5pm. It was a wonderful but very long and exhausting day. Iral and I relax on the couch for a few hours to end the day.
Remeber you can click on any image to make it larger.
Thanks to Ben Baker and Gwen Kalvelage for letting me know they read my blog. Congradulations to my mom who will soon be retiring! Happy birthday to Kam Sisco I think it's soon.
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