I believe I can fly

Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to YOU!!!
Happy BIRTHDAY to Aliiiiisooooooooonn...
Happy Biiiirthdaaaay... tooooooo... yoooooouuuuuuuuuuu!
Well Alsie Walsie turned a quarter of a century old yesterday so we had to do something a little special to mark the occassion. Something she's always wanted to try, which I'm basing on all the 'hints' she's bludgeoned me with through the year, is to go for a hot air balloon ride.

I'd been warned that successfully scheduling a balloon ride for a specific day would really depend on fair weather conditions. I must have lost count of how many times I'd checked the weekly weather report on the lead up to Sunday hoping that the forecasted "Sunny and Fine" would hold true. Thankfully I didn't get a phone call from the pilot that morning to cancel the flight so we were dressed and off at 4:00AM to get to the park before sunrise.



Inflating the balloon was pretty nifty. They blow cold air through the throat of the balloon on it's side to fill most of it up and get some shape.



Then they heat up the air which causes the balloon to rise upright slowly. The balloon was big enough to carry nine people so we had to scramble in pretty quickly to prevent the pilot taking off on his own.

Once we were in the air though, the view was just marvelous. It's hard to believe how much control the pilot had over which direction he wanted to move in and rotate. All of it came down to reading the winds and burning at the right time to catch the right correction.



Needless to say we managed to get some pretty nifty views of the city that you wouldn't normally be able to see.



Being up at the crack of dawn before the city comes to life also presented a few rare shots.

After a little over an hour we returned to terra firma next to a creek near Kedron. The landing wasn't nearly as traumatic as we were lead to believe although we did get pretty close to making a splash in the water. All up a fantastic experience and one that we'd definitely like to try again somewher else in the world.