Sprangles

On Friday last week we went hot-air ballooning with Windward Ballooning Adventures in Northam — it was a surprise trip for Lana for her 30th birthday.

The day started early with a 1 hour drive out to the airfield from Perth — we could have chosen to stay the night in Northam, but ballooning is entirely dependent upon the weather, so our flight might have been cancelled at the last minute. I’d booked the flight a couple of months in advance, and it didn’t seem like such a big task to drive out to Northam by 5:15am.

Once we were at the Northam Airfield we were introduced to our pilot (Damien Hays) and our balloon (Rainbow Drifter II). After some coffees to warm up we climbed on a bus and headed out to the launch site in a paddock just outside of Northam.

The start of the flight involves laying the balloon on the ground and having two strong men hold the mouth open (Lana’s Dad playing the role of Strong Man #1 in this shot). They have two large petrol-powered fans (just out of shot in this photo) that blow air into the balloon to get it to inflate.

Just blowing cold air into the balloon is enough to get it to inflate quite a bit. Lana’s parents are marvelling at the size of the balloon in this shot.

While the balloon is slowly inflating the pilot and his helpers walk around inside it and make sure it’s laid out smoothly and is inflating okay. I took this shot by standing just in front of the mouth (next to the fans) and shooting inside the balloon. I think it would be quite a lot of fun to run around in there. That’s Damien adjusting the balloon in the middle.

Here’s a side shot of the balloon after it’s been partially inflated with cold air. You can see the basket on its side at the bottom of the balloon, and the 4WD to which the balloon is tied. That’s important to stop the balloon floating away before everyone has a chance to climb in.

Once the balloon is inflated with cold air on the ground, it’s time to warm it up — bring on the propane burners! I was surprised how quickly the balloon started to rise once Damien fired up the burners — it didn’t take very long to start rising off the ground. Lana’s Dad is still holding the edge of the balloon, he said that his hands got a little warm at this stage.

Here’s another shot of Damien heating up the balloon, you can see the basket on it’s side on the right. Pretty soon after this shot the balloon floated off the ground and the basket stood up (good thing it was tied to the 4WD).

As soon as the balloon stood upright we all climbed in to the basket which holds 20 people. The basket is divided up internally into 4 separate places for passengers and a middle section for the pilot and propane bottles. We were given specific places to stand based on our weights to make sure that the basket was relatively level in the sky. The basket was cosy, but not uncomfortable, and I was happy to see it was made out of wicker just like I’d imagined (though it was well trimmed with suede interior — luxury!).

They untied us from the 4WD and our pilot Damien fired up the burners, and slowly we took off. The rate of accent was slow and and graceful, and the basket was completely steady in the air.

A few moments after we left the ground we were cruising at about 1000 feet, and we saw the sunrise over the horizon. It was beautifully quiet and peaceful — everybody in the basket was quiet and still as we watched the dawn. It was quite a moment.

We cruised up to about 4000 feet, the pilot changing the height of the balloon to take advantage of winds at different altitudes moving in different directions and different speeds. We did a brief tour of the township of Northam (shown here) and the surrounding countryside — it was a very clear day so we could just see the buildings in Perth (about 100km away).

I had thought that I might be a little scared in the balloon, being so high up in a wicker basket, but I felt quite secure and comfortable, even when peering over the edge.

I didn’t notice at the time (Lana told me later on) but one of the guys in the balloon proposed to his girlfriend while we were at 4000 feet. Nicely done, that’s a pretty romantic place to propose. The only downside is that the propane burners are quite loud when the pilot is adjusting our height — you’d want to make sure that the burner didn’t go off right in the middle of popping the question.

After the high altitude tour we dropped down to about 30-50 feet from the ground and skimmed along treetops and valleys. I hadn’t expected the pilot would have quite as much control over the balloon as he did, it was very impressive.

Here’s a shot of Lana towards the end of the flight with the nice sharp shadow of our balloon on the hill behind us.

Despite protests, Lana insisted on taking a photo of me, so I’ve included it here for those that haven’t seen my ugly mug in a while. Look at that facial hair lads.

Impressively our pilot landed the balloon on the trailer attached to the 4WD, and then let the balloon fall down onto the ground. Before the day I had had visions of the balloon crashing in to the ground and us being dragged along sideways in the basket, but in reality it was peaceful and simple. Once the basket was secured to the trailer we all jumped out and helped pack up the balloon.

Under instruction from the ballooning professionals, we helped squeeze the air out of the balloon from the basket to the top. (Note: you can see some Patterson’s Curse in the foreground of this shot).

As you can see from this shot of Lana’s Mum, beating the air out of the balloon was quite a lot of fun.

After the balloon had been packed away in its big canvas bag we took the bus back to Northam for our champagne breakfast, along with fruit, croissants, muffins and a full cooked breakfast. What a great way to start the day!

Overall I was really happy with how the day turned out — it was quite spectacular and definitely worth the cost. If you’re looking for something different to do, then I highly recommend giving ballooning a go!

(The exhaustively complete set of pictures is available).