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(Advanced warning - all the links in this post are to horrendously large .jpgs, taken with my digital camera and not resized or anything.)
On Monday we went up in a hot air balloon!
We arrived at 6pm at the place we were meant to meet up at 6:15pm, but 'Generation Terrorists' in the car made the wait not terribly onerous :-). When more people turned up, and the trailer with the basket on arrived, we got out and made ourselves known to the pilot, and were moderately sociable with the more talkative of the other people. We waited quite a while for the minibus that was going to take us down to the launch field to arrive, and the smell of cooking from the pub reminded my dad that he hadn't had tea yet. Also, the wind speed on the ground was apparently too high.
We all piled into the minibus and were driven about 10mins to the launch field, where we proceeded to stand around for about an hour while the pilot and the driver of the Land Rover with the trailer the basket fits on ummed and ahhed and released little plastic balloons and called people on mobile phones. We tried to find some grain in the 'wild' corn growing up in the field (it looked almost planted, but hadn't been cultivated and was mostly rotten or not developed at all - we found a few green grains, and some grains in the wild oats by the ditch), then we pulled up a few weeds by placing our feet either side of them and jumping, and then we found some flints. We had an amusing 'geology practical', finding flints and throwing them at each other to smash them to see the shiny dark glassy bits inside. But I forgot to photograph any of them, unfortunately. They were pretty.
Eventually they decided to go ahead, and the wait was a good thing because the clouds had started to break up, although we had been getting worried 'cos it was getting quite late. They unrolled the balloon, which was all pretty rainbow colours, and started to inflate it, with big noisy fans. It took quite a long time, so when watching the pilot wander around inside the balloon got boring, I wandered off to look at some pretty purple flowers. When it was ready, all inflated on its side, we had to go and lie down in the basket (which was on its side) so that when it righted itself we'd be in a sitting position. It was a bit scary with the burners because I thought my hair might catch fire!
After a lot of bumping around on the ground trying to get enough lift without being carried away by the wind (which was still quite strong) sideways (the basket was tied to the Land Rover to stop it taking off too soon), we finally were airbourne! There was another balloon also using the field to take off, but their balloon wasn't as pretty as our one. The sun was already setting by the time we took off. From the road we'd seen the combine harvester in the field next to us, and from the air we could see the thing that picks up the hay. Very nearby was also the Great Maize Maze, which might have been the one that holds the 'largest in the world' title or might have been the one that did until another one was grown specifically to beat it. I was amused by how the corners of the fields were rarely right-angled or otherwise logical. Of course, some of the fields were there just to look pretty and purple! Later on, there was even more vivid purple in one field...
Cut through the first purple field was a swathe of green, which was the runway for a small airfield. We saw another airfield on the way as well, but it was at the wrong angle to get a decent shot of. I thought that the sewage works looked quite pretty from the air, but then again I've liked them (visually, not olfactorily) ever since we went to visit them in primary school. The picture o f the big muddy field with interesting colours in it didn't come out that well, unfortunately. Neither did the pillbox hiding in the hedge. We scared an awful lot of animals, the most impressive being the sheep (note the England flag painted on the barn - scary), who even showed some kind of sense at one point, running for cover under the trees. People were also impressed with the balloon, this particularly vociferous couple earning a photograph for their troubles. We flew over several lovely gardens, and some quite imposing houses too. We flew really low over a forest, which I took a little mini-movie of (if anyone wants it and can read .mov files, then I'll email you it - no, I don't know what format it's in), but the picture of the woodpiles didn't come out so well. Other notable features (yes, I'm getting bored of writing this now) were an aquaduct, a whole bunch of police cars and a 'The Sun' lorry beside stacks of newspapers.
On being warned we would be landing soon, despite there being beautiful harvested fields perfect for landing either side of us, we resolutely followed the course of the road for a good ten minutes before the balloon deigned to aim itself at a nice grassy field. When we were told to sit down we were meant to be braced against the side in case the basket tipped over, but I was still trying to look out through the weave of the wicker basket, so it's just as well it was a very soft landing indeed. We all climbed out and they began to deflate the pretty rainbow balloon. There was champagne on offer afterwards, but I had orange juice, despite the offers to take a glass of champagne off my hands - I was thirsty! Then we had some Pringles, which my dad was very grateful for, as it was about 9pm by this time and still no food. As we were landing we managed to scare the dog of the landowners into running away, so there was a slight delay while people searched for it, because they weren't very happy. But eventually we all piled into the minibus (which got very warm indeed on the way back because of all the people in it for a longer journey) and made our way back to the pub carpark, from which we proceeded to KFC for some long-awaited food :-).
On Monday we went up in a hot air balloon!
We arrived at 6pm at the place we were meant to meet up at 6:15pm, but 'Generation Terrorists' in the car made the wait not terribly onerous :-). When more people turned up, and the trailer with the basket on arrived, we got out and made ourselves known to the pilot, and were moderately sociable with the more talkative of the other people. We waited quite a while for the minibus that was going to take us down to the launch field to arrive, and the smell of cooking from the pub reminded my dad that he hadn't had tea yet. Also, the wind speed on the ground was apparently too high.
We all piled into the minibus and were driven about 10mins to the launch field, where we proceeded to stand around for about an hour while the pilot and the driver of the Land Rover with the trailer the basket fits on ummed and ahhed and released little plastic balloons and called people on mobile phones. We tried to find some grain in the 'wild' corn growing up in the field (it looked almost planted, but hadn't been cultivated and was mostly rotten or not developed at all - we found a few green grains, and some grains in the wild oats by the ditch), then we pulled up a few weeds by placing our feet either side of them and jumping, and then we found some flints. We had an amusing 'geology practical', finding flints and throwing them at each other to smash them to see the shiny dark glassy bits inside. But I forgot to photograph any of them, unfortunately. They were pretty.
Eventually they decided to go ahead, and the wait was a good thing because the clouds had started to break up, although we had been getting worried 'cos it was getting quite late. They unrolled the balloon, which was all pretty rainbow colours, and started to inflate it, with big noisy fans. It took quite a long time, so when watching the pilot wander around inside the balloon got boring, I wandered off to look at some pretty purple flowers. When it was ready, all inflated on its side, we had to go and lie down in the basket (which was on its side) so that when it righted itself we'd be in a sitting position. It was a bit scary with the burners because I thought my hair might catch fire!
After a lot of bumping around on the ground trying to get enough lift without being carried away by the wind (which was still quite strong) sideways (the basket was tied to the Land Rover to stop it taking off too soon), we finally were airbourne! There was another balloon also using the field to take off, but their balloon wasn't as pretty as our one. The sun was already setting by the time we took off. From the road we'd seen the combine harvester in the field next to us, and from the air we could see the thing that picks up the hay. Very nearby was also the Great Maize Maze, which might have been the one that holds the 'largest in the world' title or might have been the one that did until another one was grown specifically to beat it. I was amused by how the corners of the fields were rarely right-angled or otherwise logical. Of course, some of the fields were there just to look pretty and purple! Later on, there was even more vivid purple in one field...
Cut through the first purple field was a swathe of green, which was the runway for a small airfield. We saw another airfield on the way as well, but it was at the wrong angle to get a decent shot of. I thought that the sewage works looked quite pretty from the air, but then again I've liked them (visually, not olfactorily) ever since we went to visit them in primary school. The picture o f the big muddy field with interesting colours in it didn't come out that well, unfortunately. Neither did the pillbox hiding in the hedge. We scared an awful lot of animals, the most impressive being the sheep (note the England flag painted on the barn - scary), who even showed some kind of sense at one point, running for cover under the trees. People were also impressed with the balloon, this particularly vociferous couple earning a photograph for their troubles. We flew over several lovely gardens, and some quite imposing houses too. We flew really low over a forest, which I took a little mini-movie of (if anyone wants it and can read .mov files, then I'll email you it - no, I don't know what format it's in), but the picture of the woodpiles didn't come out so well. Other notable features (yes, I'm getting bored of writing this now) were an aquaduct, a whole bunch of police cars and a 'The Sun' lorry beside stacks of newspapers.
On being warned we would be landing soon, despite there being beautiful harvested fields perfect for landing either side of us, we resolutely followed the course of the road for a good ten minutes before the balloon deigned to aim itself at a nice grassy field. When we were told to sit down we were meant to be braced against the side in case the basket tipped over, but I was still trying to look out through the weave of the wicker basket, so it's just as well it was a very soft landing indeed. We all climbed out and they began to deflate the pretty rainbow balloon. There was champagne on offer afterwards, but I had orange juice, despite the offers to take a glass of champagne off my hands - I was thirsty! Then we had some Pringles, which my dad was very grateful for, as it was about 9pm by this time and still no food. As we were landing we managed to scare the dog of the landowners into running away, so there was a slight delay while people searched for it, because they weren't very happy. But eventually we all piled into the minibus (which got very warm indeed on the way back because of all the people in it for a longer journey) and made our way back to the pub carpark, from which we proceeded to KFC for some long-awaited food :-).
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Date: 2002-07-24 06:45 pm (UTC)From:(Oh, btw, if you're interested, your comment about logic & the corners of the fields reminded me of Georg Gerster's marvelous arial pictures of the Palouse region of Washington State and Idaho -- he calls Palouse "the Louvre of farmlands," and seeing his photos of the fields, I can believe it. But there's not a right angle in the place. There was a whole section of his photographs in The Most Beautiful Place in the World, but the book is out of print. I think I'll go write about contour plowing now.)