Living the Good Life: Hot Air Ballooning

Hey Folks,

It has been a while since you heard from us. We didn't have anything too exciting to tell you about. We were finishing up work at the dairy practice in Invercargill and were on call, so couldn't really venture too far away. The weather was quite cool and rainy much of the last two weeks down south. We pretty much stayed enclosed in our bedroom at the little place we were staying in because that was the only place with a heater...Brrrrrr...That is one thing I won't miss about NZ: the lack of insulation and heating in their houses.

Well we have now finished up work and have entered into our last month of trip. Oh how time flies. Our rough plan is to head back up north over the next weeks as we fly out from Auckland again in the first week of June to Fiji for a week and then back to the homeland. We had to readjust to van living again which only took a couple nights to get into the routine again.

Rakaia Gorge

We decided to head up the east coast of the South Island to do a hot air balloon ride over the Canterbury plains. We had heard great things and there was a deal on it so all was good.

When I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and looked out in the darkness I could see that it was quite foggy around the street lights, so I wasn't sure that our ride would be a go. But I wiped off the dry slobber on my cheek and got ready anyways. We met at the balloon pilot's house and it was still dark and foggy by the time we got there.

The pilot believed that the fog was going to rise so we headed out on a bus to our launch site. We all had a hand in helping set up the balloon for the ride. We got the basket out of the trailer and then rolled out the huge balloon.

We then used two fans to fill the balloon with cool air. As the balloon filled with air you really got an appreciation of the the immense size of it. It was quite an awesome sight with all of its colors.

After filling it with cold air, the pilot turned on the burners to lift the balloon and tip the basket upright. It was surprising actually how little the burners had to be on for to start to lift the balloon.

It was still foggy when we were ready to take off so we just waited in the basket until we could see some blue sky. After about 20 mins we were off. It didn't take long to get above the fog and into sunny skies and then the view hit us like a freight train. There was a perfect blanket of fog with the mountains sticking up.

As we floated around we could sometimes see the ground through the fog holes, but it just wasn't lifting like the pilot thought it would and after a while we stopped seeing the holes as well.

The normal flight time was usually 1 hour, but we couldn't see the ground yet so we kept on floating. Because we were moving with the breeze, it was quite nice above the fog. We ended up staying in the air for 2 hours and 15 mins which was just fine with me. The pilots said it was the only time this had ever happened. Because of the cloud the person on the ground couldn't see us to follow us, but I showed the pilot my gps on the phone so he could tell her where to go.

We landed in a grass paddock that was 65 kms on the road from where we started! We packed up the balloon and had a traditionally champagne toast.

After arriving back at our vehicle, we decided to head into Christchurch. It is still rebuilding from the earthquake that rocked the city on Feb 22, 2011 and closed down the whole central business district. I've talked to a lot of people around New Zealand who really liked the vibe of Christchurch before the earthquake. Now, you can still feel the sadness from the loss of lives and the destruction of the earthquake. It is quite sad actually. I was feeling quite tired (and maybe a bit grumpy), so I decided to have a nap while Roberta went on a bus tour of the "Red Zone."
Hey! Roberta here:
The Red Zone tour was very good, but also very sad. It really made me realize how dangerous it would have been if you were in the CBD that day. Here are some pics: