2002/11 Australia trip - Alice Springs |
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We had a shower to clean off the most of the crud, and headed back along to Plenty Highway and then south for a busy evening in Alice Springs. We needed to find a campsite, book up for an aborigine show and a balloon ride, and buy supplies for our final leg across the wilderness to Adelaide.
We camped at the Heritage Campground on the south side of Alice Springs in the “Gap” in the McDonnell Mountains. All the long-established balloon companies were booked up solid for the next day as high winds had caused all that day’s flights to be cancelled. We booked with Spinifex Ballooning, a bunch of 
newcomers. All the other arrangements worked out OK.
We showed up at the Aurora resort for the Red Centre Dreaming Show. This was held outside, a combination of dinner, aborigine culture, and some aborigine music and dancing. We shared the shelter with a large German party, an English couple from Derbyshire, and a Portuguese from that country’s tourism ministry. The meal was set menu: chicken, kangaroo, barramundi, champagne and wine and was quite good.
The culture was provided by a funny aborigine lady who brought along 
examples of weapons and 
art, and also told us stories about her three husbands. The music was also quite good but though the artists might have been one-eighth aborigine they didn’t look or sound it, so that was rather disappointing. Our Portuguese was much upset by that as he didn’t think he was getting what he’d paid for. After all this we were late back to the campground, and all our neighbours were unconscious.
Saturday October 26th
The problem with sunrise balloon trips is that they have to start long before sunrise. A bus collected us from the campground’s gate at 4.30 am and took us and about sixteen others out into the bush.
Periodically they stopped and let a little balloon up so they could 
watch it with a flashlight and measure its speed and direction. They aren’t allowed to take off if the wind is greater that 8 knots.
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Balloon filling (16.24) |
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The balloons and gondolas were on trailers behind the buses. About ten buses and trailers from all three ballooning companies ended up at the same launch area. And we all sat and waited. Dawn passed, so we weren’t going to see the sunrise from a balloon this 
time. Shortly thereafter, it became calm enough for take off. Two groups were going to share ou
r balloon, and we were going to be the second.
They stretched the 200 foot long balloon out flat and then used big fans to partially inflate it. The first group got into the basket with it on its side, so they were all lying 
sideways. The pilot fired up the burner and began to direct hot air into the balloon. As it filled it gradually dragged the basket upright. Actually it was more like “sideways, halfway, upright, crash 
sideways, upright, sideways, upright…., gone”.
We, the second group, leapt into the bus and followed them. The pursuit was mainly on dirt and sand roads, but we ended up just bouncing across the bush when they landed. It’s important to get to them quickly as the balloon is very vulnerable to damage when it first comes down.
The task now was to get the first group out of the basket and us in without the balloon taking off, so the pilot asked four of us to climb onto basket’s sides to hold it down. Unfortunately, one guy fell off and another went to help him, and suddenly we were airborne with just two of us on the outside of the basket. Not a time to let go! The pilot released some hot air and we were back down in a hurry.
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Balloon ride (7.56) |
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After all this excitement, when we did get airborne properly it was a bit of an anticlimax. It was very peaceful drifting over the bush, looking down on cows and kangaroos in the sunshine, except for the burner just above our heads. This was very noisy and amazingly hot on the head, especially for me.
The wind was now blowing hard, so we had to come down early or else we’d have run into the mountains. Our pilot did a skilful job of steering us between trees and we came in for a soft landing, bounced a few times, and then stopped, luckily still upright. This was just as well as there was no sign of the bus.
We helped pull the balloon off a tree, and then deflated it and folded it up, getting ourselves covered in dust. Still no bus so we started walking for the nearest road. This was not so good for an elderly lady from Mount Isa. She wasn’t really well enough for bush walking, and Sandie was helping her along. It turned out that our bus had taken a wrong turning and bogged down in sand in the riverbed, and the other bus had got stuck trying to pull it out.
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Balloon breakfast (0.22) |
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Eventually they sent out a convoy of Landcruisers to pick us up. These were the original type of vehicles that our campervan was built from. The Landcruiser hauled a dozen of us off to a resort for the ballooners’ champagne breakfast. They gave us unlimited champagne because of the inconvenience, just what we needed before a day’s driving!