Practice Day at Northam National Ballooning Championships
My first weekend in Australia, and we had decided to attend the Northam National Ballooning Championships.
From 2 to 9 September 2017, hot air balloon pilots from across Australia and around the world will descend on the Avon Valley over five days, testing their skills at varying winds and altitudes. Approximately 30 balloons will be in flight during the course of the event.
The event concludes with the ‘key grab’ competition where pilots race from point to point, collecting foam ‘keys’ from the end of 10m poles at several locations. The keys represent a key to a prize.
Northam is a fair drive in the middle of the day, but at 4 in the morning, it seems a lot farther away. However if we wanted to be there at 6 am, we decided that we should leave the house about 4. Seemed easy enough as I haven’t quite got on schedule in Australia yet, and can be up at that time.
The morning started bitter cold, frosty, even.
As we parked the car on the side of the road, I noticed the last star in the sky before the sun was to come up.
We were not alone, many other people showed up to watch the early morning launch.
It didn’t take long before they were firing up and inflating the balloons.
Soon most were inflated.
Some balloons held a lot of people.
The first one takes off.
The next ones were off and away. The pasture below shows the ‘frostiness’ of the morning.
Soon they were all off, decorating Northam’s countryside.
How fun to ride along and see one above a canola field!
I suppose the most breathtaking view was this one…
At one stop along the way…
The balloonist was close enough to give us a friendly hello.
As far as we could tell, this was the last balloon to land at the airport.
This has been a dream of mine as a photographer, to capture ballooning in a country setting. What a perfect day.
