Up & Up

So I went for a hot air balloon ride. 

This was a pipeline dream from years ago when I went to the Mont Blanc, French Alp region. Bel, my cousin Lucas and I were driving along the motorway and we saw hot air balloons flying in the distance. I never thought one day I'd ACTUALLY be doing it. I took an accidental photo from the car which has turned out to be one of my favourites and it kept reminding me how beautiful a sight it was.

Fast forward to today with me reciting my last will and testament, remembering my assets are worth less than $2000, and jumping into a wicker basket attached to a canvas balloon. To start with, the guide spoke very vague English. After he recited the safety demonstration in French, he summarised the last 10 mins into one succinct English sentence- "Hold onto the handle, landing". Reassuring much.

My first job was inflating the balloon with normal air... 

....we clambered in... 

...and then E-L-E-VA-TION

Let's just say my body was so rigid, it was like I was in one of those homewares stores with all the crystal etc on display. Did I want to be the one to bring the balloon down by one misstep?! 

As you can see the view was just out of this world, without compare. And there was just silence until....  *cue phone ring*- Gen Y cop a lot of slack for being on their phone but gramps decided to take a business call at 2000m in the sky. 

......I digress....

Peace. Tranquillity. Silence.... And all those other synonyms you can find in Microsoft word.  You hear nothing of the world below. The occasional noise of a burst of flame from above you, yes, but that's it. Spectacular. 

As they say, 'what comes up must come down' and for this we had 3 options:

1. Squeezing in a landing between houses (near high voltage powerlines mind you) 

2. An attempted landing was made on the side of this hill. When I say attempted landing I mean we crash landed onto the side of a hill before the pilot accelerated rapidly. I don't know why this was but then...

3. This imperfect picture is our 3rd landing place.  I wanted photographic evidence of just how threatening a cluster of pine trees looks as you are veering towards them from a hot air balloon. Needless to say we did crash into a tree, accelerated quickly out of said tree, then landed in a field ......

.... to the bemusement of some territorial cows (who seems to be mooing with an accent). I tore up my last will and testament and went to kiss the ground... except there was cow shit everywhere. 

We celebrated with a champagne, a stunning view of Mont Blanc, and a whole 30 minute conversation in French which nobody could translate for me - smile and wave boys, smile and wave.  

 

And therein lies the end of my first hot air ballooning trip.

Next blog : Austria / Switzerland / Amsterdam