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Published: April 29th 2006
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Thursday April 13th
OI from OZ!
Even though I protested profusely we’re going hot air ballooning! It’s a really early start, as they want you in the air at sunrise. Apparently you only balloon at sunrise, when the wind is very calm. This is the hot air ballooning capital of the world, so Jason had to book us on one (he didn’t tell me till yesterday that we’re doing this - I would have given him a harder time lol) so we get up at 4, in order to get a bus that is picking us up at 4:30. It’s friggin early, and I have memories of Maui and the early wakeup for the bike ride down the mountain. Kirk wasn’t feeling good yesterday, but he holds it together today for the most part. We hop on the bus, and are off to a hotel to pickup most guests. So we drive the hour or so to the launch site, and are informed we’re on the second flight, not a big deal as it wasn’t really sunny. We’re chasing the balloon as its flying, not really sure where it will land. It lands in some guy’s front yard, so
sure enough we drive up, all 15 or so of us. It really is a team effort to get a balloon down and up, with people holding on to it, as others get in and out. You exchange people, i.e. one comes out and one goes in. So we all get in and the guy turns on the heat. It’s super hot, and you can get an instant tan. It’s also super loud. 30 minutes of ballooning burns about 300 lbs of gas. So we’re off, heat is on and we’re rising… what a cool experience, just floating there, so quiet, and we’re moving at 30 mph. At different altitudes you move different speeds and even directions. We see lots of stuff down below, kangaroos, etc; it’s also neat to see other balloons up in the air close to you, as there are about 8 of them around. Cool experience. We finish our flight by skimming across the ground maybe 5 feet from it for a few minutes before landing. We land in a bit of a bush area, with lots of mosquitoes though. The real drag is we all have to chip in to pack up the balloon, while
we’re getting eaten. After the balloon is packed up we’re off for a “gourmet breakfast.” I wouldn’t call it gourmet, it was good though. Kirk’s still under the weather, so he’s not eating. After that we checked in to our hotel where we’re staying tonight, as we have to return the campervan today - they aren’t open tomorrow - Good Friday. We’re staying at a place called in the pink; it reminded me of a hooker hotel lol. We get all our stuff up to the room and then Jason takes the trailer back. No damage which is nice, so we saved about 1000 on insurance, and get our 5000 dollar bond back. For dinner we got some local Greek and Italian food, and ate it back in the room. Kirk ate tonight, which wasn’t a good thing. We have an early rise tomorrow as we’re off to Fiji, going first from cairns to Brisbane, then to Fiji.
More tomorrow
Lee
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melissa
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Hey Lee, are you guys home now??? WOW what an adventure! I want to hear about EVERYTHING!!!! :D XXXOOO *missed you guys big time, by the way :D*