A Transcendental Experience III

This posting might best be labelled 'Down to Earth'. All good things come to end and, alas, we had to touch ground at some point. However, our accomplished pilot conceded that our trip had been a little longer than usual because of the favourable conditions. The landing was perfect and unlike the balloon preceding us the basket remained upright. We descended slowly over a line of trees and the odd fence to rest gracefully in a paddock attached to a CSIRO experimental farm. On reaching the ground, the balloon rapidly deflated and when most of the air had, so to speak, been exhaled we exited the basket with various degrees of agility. Nothing remained but for us to pack away the gear once the support team had reached us in their 4WD vehicles and trailers. The latter task was difficult as our paddock had no observable gate and no paths crossing it.

After about 15 minutes the cavalry arrived and we began the task of winching the basket on to the trailer (which was quick and easy), and packing up the balloon, which was time- and labour- consuming. The balloon had to be folded carefully so that formed a compact mass for stuffing into a bag, and there was a lot of material involved! Actually the most difficult bit was packing the balloon into its home - a rather large bag. Max came in useful at several stages, but especially when using his wine pressing skills bouncing up and down on the balloon to compact it into the bag. The pictures below follow this chain of events.

Those tasks complete, the convoy headed back to Rydges Hotel for a celebratory drink of champagne, a tradition apparently going back to the early days of ballooning in 1783 when the Montgolfier brothers first went aloft in a hot air balloon.  That was followed in turn by a slap up breakfast at the hotel to finish off a memorable start to a day. All of this was complete by shortly after 10am, just 5 hours after we arose from our beds.

Thanks to Dawn Drifters for their professionalism, care and efficiency. The trip went without a hitch ... unless one counts the difficulties experienced in finding a way into our landing paddock!

AS