From Dawn till Midnight
- Feb 1, 2016
- 6 min read
Today was a big money spending day for me. I hate spending so much money BUT I got to do things I don’t normally have the opportunity to do at home. I started my day at 4:45am with a call to check on the weather for a sunrise Hot Air Balloon Ride. The ride was on! I wouldn’t say that I am scared of heights but just knowing that we would be ascending to extreme heights in a balloon and basket kind of creeped me out. Anyhoo, I was picked up by the awesome company Ballooning New Zealand. I boarded the bus and I was the only white person on the tour, lol there were 2 people from India and 14 from China needless to say the poor driver only had me to talk to. J We headed off to our take off spot which was about 15 min away in the middle of a field. The balloon was all laid out into a colorful long straight line with the basket attached and laying on its side. I had seen a few videos of balloons being opened up but seeing it in person is a whole different experience. Our job was to not stand behind the basket and to have 2 volunteers hold onto the cables of the balloons to help keep the bottom opened so the 2 large fans could blow air into the center of the balloon. Most of it is filled with cool air, but as it got larger, the pilot would turn on the massive flame to add heat to it. It took a good 20 min or so I guess to really get the balloon to the point where there was enough air so that it could be stood up and the basket could be up righted. Once everything was in place, the pilot had people get into the basket. The center holds the pilot and 3 large canisters full of fuel for the flame, on the outsides there are 2 spaces on each side of the pilot. Everyone climbed on in and the pilot asked me to move closer to the center and near the front. Oh the joys of being the only one to speak English!!!!! Now he had someone to talk to and keep him company. I asked him how take off was going to be because I was afraid I might get motion sickness and puke hahaha. He said “It is going to be nice and smooth, and really smooth”. He wasn’t kidding, you couldn’t feel it moving at all! It was such a light smooth accent up it was amazing. They also had a GoPro that was attached to the balloon that faced us so we got some cool pictures which you can see in my gallery. The views were amazing as you could imagine. You could see for miles and miles because it was so incredibly clear. The mountains looked closer than just standing at a lookout along a road. Looking down (even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to) was really cool, there was a patchwork of green and tan fields that were spotted with little white cotton balls which were sheep. Interestingly enough there were a lot of tall trees that reminded me a bit of big pines with larger needles. You could never get bored with all of the things to look at, and with the sun coming up over the mountain it just seemed to sparkle. The other nice thing about our mile-high sky voyage was there were 2 balloons cruising the skies so we were able to watch the other balloon sail effortlessly through the sky. On our decent down to where ever we could land, we had a partial run in with a big pine type tree (which wasn’t a big deal, just funny) and due to the wind had to land on someone’s property where the people on the ground who were following us had to go ask for permission for us to land. The owners were cool with it so out of the basket we climbed to help put the balloon away. This was a bit more time consuming I think than getting it blown us. You had to hold onto the top ring (that holds all of the lines that go over/around the balloon) while people on the other side start to push the air out towards us. As they did that and the balloon deflated, you had to then gather all of the material and put it into a straight line again. It was then gathered up and tied in some places to try and keep it together when you started to put it in a big huge bag. This balloon was HEAVY!!! I mean I knew it would be but wow! Once we got it into the bag, a bunch of people had to then grab the handles on the bag and drag it up a small ramp into a trailer. Now we could enjoy the breakfast of muffins and champagne that they had waiting for us. It really was a wonderful day!! The pilot (Rock) was super cool, Heidi our driver was really sweet and the other guys name who slips my mind was really nice. Him and I chatted about my travels and where in NZ he was from and how long he had been working with the company. It was now time to head back to Queenstown for the rest of my day. I got back to my car and camped out for an hour and took a nap till 10:30, which was much needed.
Sunrise Balloons
Carrick McLellan (Pilot)
Queenstown, NZ
I got up and ventured around the city to check things out. I went to their little bird park and was able to check out a Kiwi bird, they are so stinking cute. They had some other birds there as well like owls, hawks, Keas and what not, some of them are rescues from being hit by cars. I made my way back to the car at some point to grab a blanket and my book and headed back to the gardens to do some reading. People ask me if I have any downtime, and I make time for myself. When I write here to tell people how my trip is going is downtime, I like to read so been doing a bit of that and just before bed. Hahaha I like to keep myself going so that I can see as much as I can. I don’t know if I will make it back here so I am trying to maximize my time as much as possible.
After my lazy afternoon, I headed back to the mountain area for the rest of my evening activities. It started with doing the luge! Who doesn’t like racing down a track on a small plastic sled with hand brakes. I had a blast doing this, I screamed like a little girl going down some of the hills and through the tunnels but it was awesome! I did 2 runs, I could of done more but that was an expensive activity. After this I waited around for a bit for the buffet dinner that I bought with my star package. Since it was just me I figured it would be easy to find me a place to sit, but apparently not hahaha. A gentleman and his wife from Indiana offered to have me sit with them and it was the best thing! They both worked on a dairy farm and have 6 kids. The husband looked like Santa and had a wonderful sense of humor. I was really glad they offered for me to join them, and as we departed they thanked me for making their dinner time more enjoyable. I of course pigged out on sushi, calamari and some green lipped muscles and then had a few desserts to top things off. I had a bit of downtime before the star gazing so I sat around and let my food digest. While waiting, a woman came over and asked if I was doing the star activity and asked if she could sit and join me, of course I said. He name is Henni and she is from Bisbane and was just on vacation before starting her new job. I really enjoyed hanging out with her for the evening as it made it more enjoyable to share the experience with someone. Our guide Collette was awesome and had such a wealth of knowledge to share with everyone on the southern night sky. We spent about 2 hours looking at the sky and talking about distances from earth, constellations, shooting stars, satellites and a whole lot more. We had the opportunity to look at a nebula within the Orion constellation, The Jewelers Box which had 3 stars, one was red, one was bright blue and the other was pale blue, another star that is actually a binary star (2 stars that look like one) and the final was JUPITER! You could see the storms on the planet and 4 of its moons. What I would kill for an awesome telescope like the one we used. But spending it on traveling is way more important to me hahahah. I took a bunch of pictures but have to go through them to see if any of them really came out. We shall see! I made it back to my car in the holiday park that I was staying in and crawled into bed around 1am. What a long amazing day that was! Bring on tomorrow!
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