Hot-air balloon at Atherton Tablelands, Australia

I almost choked when told that the pick-up for the tour is at 4:30am - finding it a dificulty even to wake up for work at 6:30am. Nevertheless, we set the alarm for 3:45am and got ready in front of the hostel by the said time. Sure enough, the bus came on time. Probably the reason why the pick-up has been so early is to pick up all the other passengers and also the trip to Mareeba where our balloons are at. When we got there, it's almost 6:00am and the big balloons are almost half-filled. Shuhui and I are going on the 1st flight, and our instructions were to go to the balloon once we see it standing up, which didn't take too long at all.


this Peregrine balloon is the one we went up on

It's my 1st experience on the balloon. Basically, the basket is divided into 6 sections, of the the pilot takes the middle 2 to place the fuel-tanks for the burner. Each of the other 4 sections can sit 4 passengers which means that including the pilot, there are 17 of us on each flight. On each section, there are 8 ropes which we need to hold on to during landing which we discovered are very important - the balloon can actually topple to the side during landing, and the ropes are only things we can hang on to prevent from dropping off the basket.


a shot taken from the balloon, a few hundred feet up

The ascent was simply incredible, and the view is really breathtaking. And when all the other balloons ascend as well, together with the sunrise, you can imagine how beautiful this experience is. We were up there in the air for about half-an-hour while the pilot maneuvers the balloon to a different location for the landing. And when we descended, all of us had to help to pack up the balloons which involved squeezing all the air out, and then putting the entire thing into the basket before going for breakfast.

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most recent update: October 6, 1999
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