A First for the Arbuckles! We have never taken a hot air balloon ride before, yet alone before dawn in the Southern Hemisphere winter. We were up early again and picked up at 5am by John & Rob of Outback Ballooning along with about a dozen others from area hotels. We headed out towards the airport, then took a dirt road 10 miles into the dark of the Outback. It was a cold morning, minus 3 degrees Celsius which is about 25F. Dressed warm with coats, hats, gloves and scarfs we got off the bus at the launch site to witness an unbelievable sky. More stars visible than at Ayres Rock were above us. Italians, Aussies, Germans, French, English and ourselves stood spellbound for nearly 10 minutes looking towards the heavens. It simply is no
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