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Published: January 15th 2010
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Another highlight of the trip - hot air ballooning!! We picked Cairns to be our destination for hot air ballooning as it’s said to have the best views and also some of the biggest balloons in the world. We chose to go with the company “Hot Air” which has the symbolic koala and kangaroo balloons and they also have the biggest balloons in Australia. The bigger the balloon, the higher up it goes.
Again, we were the first to get picked up in the morning. The tour bus arrived timely at 4:10am. The sky was still the same colour as it was before we went to bed. It was the forth morning in a row we had to get up early, I was already a little bit exhausted! I guess this is always a price to pay when travelling.
After picking up 15 other people, we were off to Mureeba, where the balloon will be launched. Mureeba is 1 hour north-west of Cairns. This town is said to have the highest flying days of average of 360 days a year. Wind is the mildest at the time the sun rises so tours are only run around dawn. Wind and rain
prevent hot air balloons from flying. I was a bit worried that the tour would be cancelled last minute and that our effort of getting up early would be wasted.
Anyway, so we are scheduled to fly the second round. When we got there, the first round of hot air balloons was just ready to take off. I never thought the balloons and the baskets could be THIS big. Each basket can take up to 20 passengers. After seeing the balloons off the ground, we hopped back onto the bus for “balloon chasing”.
Hot air balloons cannot be steered, it goes wherever the wind takes it to and hence, the landing location cannot be pre-determined. So once the balloons are off the ground, the buses will be to chase the balloons to where the passengers will be landed. During the whole time, the pilot communicated with the bus driver via radio. When it was about time to land, the driver would stick his head out and spit towards the ground to determine the wind direction. Our landing was not successful on the first attempt, we almost landed in a forest, so the pilot has to fill up the
balloon with more air until we got to an open field. Selecting a landing ground is important too because the pilot has to make sure we don’t land on fence or power poles.
The entire tour was about 5 hours including the time to pack up the hot air balloon as well as the champagne breakfast, but actual flying time was only 30 minutes. The ride was very smooth and comfy and the view up at 2000 ft above ground was spectacular. We saw kangaroos hopping amongst the trees, rivers with the reflection of our big yellow balloon and also large fields of fruit orchards. Packing up the balloon was quite an experience too. Each person is assigned a section of the balloon and make sure the hot air is squeezed out balloon and then we will lift up the flatten balloon and feed it back into the big bag, which is about half the size of a Yaris. After the champagne breakfast (well, basically a regular buffet breakfast with a glass of champagne, why champagne? I don’t know), we were all set to return to the hotel.
One of the popular weekend markets in Cairns is the
Rusty’s fruit market. Unlike the night market that we went to the first night, this market sells mainly local fruits and vegetables and is only opened every Friday to Sunday. We were told that the food here is quite a lot cheaper than grocery stores, so a lot of locals come on the weekend and buy in bulk. The fruits currently in season are mangoes, lychee and passion fruits. I have never eaten passion fruit before, and they smelled really good (exactly like the bubble tea syrup), so I bought 2 to try. I also picked a really ripe mangoes and it only cost $0.20. The cheapest I found in Sydney at retail market was $1.25 each.
Later in the afternoon, we went for a swim at the public lagoon on Esplanade. The lagoon was right by the ocean and filled by salt water from the sea. Some mini beaches were also created along the edge of the lagoon for the kids. Carlos did not think it was anything special to try but I insisted to at least go for a dip there. At around 3:30, the lagoon was packed with kids and sun tanners. The view was nice
with an open ocean, but other than that, I think the pool at the hotel is a lot better.
Our long day was completed with a nice dinner at the Raw Prawn, which was recommended by Queenie. Carlos being who he is, he picked the crocodile and kangaroo steaks. It was his first time trying these in Aus. I never liked the idea of eating kangaroos. To me, kangaroos are just like rats, who would eat rat meat? The crocodile meat looked like chicken breast, except the texture is a bit more gooey, tasted like fish. Kangaroo meat was a bit “so”, I didn’t like it. I ordered a seafood plate with coconut sauce and jasmine rice, it was delicious. Mud crab is popular here too, but we will save it for the crab catching cruise at Gold Coast.
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Hot AirTeam
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Nice work!
Hi and thanks for the great write-up! From the Hot Air Team.