Floating Above Cloud Nine

A moment lived in Australia by Life…One Big Aventure, a traveler from Australia

Ever thought about doing a balloon flight?

Life is good!

How good is it when something you have been dreaming about for a long time, actually comes off? That is exactly what happened to me recently when I fulfilled a long-held dream to sail across the skies in a hot air balloon.

On the ‘adventure scale’, this activity is probably not rated very highly. But I have been surprised by the number of people who turn up their noses or roll their eyes at the thought of lifting off terra firma and rising above the clouds.

Not me!

A couple of years ago we celebrated Dad’s 80th birthday with a brilliant weekend at the Canowindra International Balloon Challenge, but we had left it too late to book a balloon ride. Here was my perfect opportunity to make good on that Bucket List item and give a gift to remember. After some consideration, my parents embraced the opportunity and decided to make my Christmas gift a balloon ride too! Yippee for me!

Balloon Aloft operate in Mudgee once a month. It was a very dark and very early morning in March when a group of bleary-eyed thrill-seekers assembled expectantly at Blue Wren Winery. We were a rag-tag mix of 14 locals and visitors, all in desperate need of more sleep and coffee, but at least we were united by our excitement of starting this new day with something special.

Clay and Deano, from Balloon Aloft, greeted us warmly and quickly allayed any nerves that may have been bubbling under the surface. Deano sent up a tiny, helium-filled balloon with a blinking red light suspended below to check the wind direction and speed. That little balloon, tracked through special night-vision binoculars, told us we must drive 20km east of Mudgee to be able to accurately float back across the Mudgee valley.

The day turned out to be a bus and a balloon adventure as we puttered eastwards, and turned into a farmer’s bare paddock in the early morning dark.

A unique feeling and viewpoint

It only seemed to take minutes before the balloon blossomed into life. There was a mad scramble as the group had to board quickly. Picture – arms and legs and other body parts awkwardly flung into the basket as it ebbed and bobbed centimeters above the ground.

Dad checked with Deano, “are you coming with us, too?” Deano quipped back, “not on your life, I wouldn’t be seen dead in one of those things!” As Deano stepped back and released the rope anchoring the basket, he turned and we read “Australian Balloon Team” on the back of his t-shirt, so obviously he was joking.

Within seconds, we seemed to be hundreds of meters above the ground, and the bus and cars morphed into matchboxes. I was surprised and dazzled by the speed we were moving, and the pure, blissful silence. Is this what birds experience?

The quiet enveloped us as we tried to process what we were experiencing. The cool breeze, the sensation of a delicate mist tickling our cheeks, and the perspective of being ABOVE the landscape, not in it.

We were brought back to the here and now quickly with each blast of the burner, with a roaring noise and the licks of searing heat. Such a contrast to the sounds of silence.

Clay shot us above the clouds so we could appreciate the fluffy carpet that edged the basket. It was tempting to step out and stroll towards the sunrise, but that first step would have been a doozy!

The period of stunned silence soon evaporated and we excitedly chattered away, as we pointed out fleeing kangaroos, wallaroos, and goats. A million questions later, Clay was happy to share his expertise and we were all fascinated by the technicalities of maneuvering a balloon.

The sun eventually rose through the layers of cloud, showcasing Mudgee and the patchwork valley. Such a different perspective of my hometown, I simply couldn’t drink it in fast enough as we floated westwards.

Fifty minutes later we were aiming for our landing paddock on the south-western side of Mudgee, only to overshoot it by about a kilometer. We all assumed the landing position – knees bent and hands grasping the rope handles – and then bump, bump and the basket flipped on its side! It sounds inelegant, and it was, but it was also very funny to be upright one moment and horizontal the next. All part of the morning’s excitement.

It was only during the post-balloon-ride breakfast that Mum and Dad shared that they had been a wee bit nervous about the whole balloon-ride thing.. But they were so pleased they had done it! Phew!

Is this the role of children? To talk their parents into doing weird and wonderful activities they normally wouldn’t dream of?

This traveler has a blog: Life…One Big Adventure

The Craziest Men I Have Met At Free Campsites

A moment lived in Australia by Jess Weller, a traveller from United Kingdom

For the last 9 months, I have been travelling around Australia in my car. Using the most valuable app to any backpacker in Australia, Wikicamps, I find and stay in free campsites as much as possible. Now these free campsites can range from car parks and gravel rest stops on highways to full blown grassy campsites with showers and toilets, it’s the most amazing thing! But as most things free, it can also attract a stranger crowd… We have encountered our fair share crazy, but these guys really stick in our minds, I’m not too sure why though?!
The Man Who Wanted To A Beer At 2am
This local pub allowed people to camp for free on a small patch of land behind them, where again apart from a caravan we were alone. The caravan looked as though it hadn’t been touched in years, run down and a bit gross so we actually thought we did have the place to ourselves. That was until 2am, I awoke looking out the window with a guy staring in at us (no more than 50cm from my face, luckily the window was shut). Then he started tapping on the window half shouting if we wanted to have a tinny (can of beer) with him. Yep, that’s exactly what we want to do, get woken up in the middle of the night to share a beer with a drunk, crazy stranger looking through our car window.
The Man Who Liked To Wee
Tasmania seems to be the place to go if you have a fetish for being weed in front of! This campsite was a gravel car park with a park around the sides. It was pretty big and there weren’t many cars so it was a bit unnecessary for this guy to park right next to us. He was just sitting in his front seat for an hour or so, but kept looking towards our car, in which we were snuggled up watching a film. Just before going to sleep, we did our usual routine, get out the car and brush our teeth. Obviously hearing us opening the doors, he looked up, opened his door and got out, whacked his willy out and started weeing – literally a meter away facing us. At 5am he turned his car on, tested how loud his speakers could go and then sat there blaring out crazily loud music for 10 minutes then left. Maybe he was crazy, or maybe looking for an argument, or maybe he was just blind and deaf, who knows!
The Man Who Thought He Was Police
I think this guy is our favourite crazy of the 6. To cut a long story short… Whilst at a campsite in the Gold Coast, I saw a man in a land cruiser (meet LC man) drive drunk into the back of a fisherman’s van (meet FM man). After arguing for a while, LC decided arguing wasn’t getting him anywhere so whacked out his knife… I know, it escalated quickly! Luckily no one got hurt in the writing of this blog… It was all for the show. He then came over to me and gave me his car keys so when the police arrived he couldn’t get nicked for drink driving. The police didn’t actually do anything, maybe gave them a warning but it was still very good afternoon entertainment for a nosey person like me! Fast forward to the evening when LC walks over to Ben and I with a watermelon in one arm and a bulletproof vest in the other. He started telling us how he is an undercover policeman, and the vest is his proof. The vest looked as though he had written POLICE with Word Art, printed it and stuck it on with sellotape. The Aussie police must be cutting costs. Next, he gives us the watermelon (it’s already half eaten by the way) as a sorry for the commotion earlier gift. Yum.
The Man Who Was A Thief
I sadly didn’t get the chance to meet this charming man. We stayed on the outskirts of Melbourne in a car park. We were the only ones there, but all night cars would drive in and meet another car, both with their lights off. Probably drug dealing. Ice is a big problem in Aus, maybe because it’s so hot here they think it will cool them down (what even is ice?!). So we woke up in the morning to the lovely surprise of needles laying around the car. Someone must have had a nice evening. We then noticed we no longer had our rear number plate! So during our sleep in the car, someone managed to unscrew and steal it. Rather than the beach, the police station was our first stop that morning. Turns out it happens a lot!
The Petrol Sniffer
This guy roamed the same campsite as LC in the Gold Coast, so maybe this place should probably be avoided. We stayed here for 4 nights, and every day this young but aged guy would walk around with a water bottle pushed to his mouth. It was empty bar a tiny amount of yellow liquid. Petrol. All day he would walk around sniffing it. He would then find a metal pole and fight it, punches and all. These poor poles couldn’t put up a fight. One day we were sitting at a picnic table eating when he walks over to us, bends down and pulls out a weed from the ground. Grasping it in a similar manner to when proud children hold out flowers to their playground crush in films, he hands me this weed. Very thoughtful. It was more flowery than the (lack of) flowers I have received for a while. And off he went, to fight another metal post!

This traveller has a blog : Ben and Jess Adventures

Sitting on the dock of the Bay…

A moment lived in Australia by Maire, a traveller from Ireland

The orange and indigo sunset streaked the sky as we made our way home from the beach at Byron Bay. A hippy town at the epicentre of the alternative Australian lifestyle, Byron is a sleepy village dotted at the curve of the crescent inlet which gives the town it’s name. Time is malleable there, as though it gets stuck beneath the thick, hot air and starts shifting side to side instead of propelling you forward. The sun sets for what seems like hours on end, then all of a sudden you’ve stayed in this town 5 days longer than you intended. The sand, like caster sugar, coats your feet. The sea salt in your hair, the air, everywhere.

A mecca for the misfit, everything moves to its own slow steady rhythm. The locals drawl in that distinctive Australian tone “No draaaaamas mate”. Even the birds have an Aussie accent – ka KA kaaa kaaaaaaaa. The glistening back of a dolphin curves up and out of the water, the motion of a soundwave. Up and down. Up and down. A slow and steady pulse, a natural metronome keeping everything in time.

Locky is the counterpoint. That night we meet Locky sitting barefoot and bare chested on the street corner, drumming on a bench with two empty coke bottles. A lion’s mane of sandy dreadlocks, atop a spindly teenage frame, Locky somewhat resembled a kitchen mop. We sat cross legged beside him, as he gave the bench an absolute battering, playing tune after tune as the sun grew tired. Locky was from rural New South Wales, from a farming town in the arse hole of nowhere. He ran away to Byron to become a drummer at 17. “No better place, says you” I said to Locky. Both native English speakers but I still had to provide a translation. We joked that Irish people seem to say very little, but in as many words as humanly possible whereas Australian abbreviate, clipping words in half but drawing them out, slowly. Australians are trying to conserve energy as they bake in the sun. The chat keeps the Irish warm, sure our teeth would only be chattering otherwise.

Musicians seem to grow on trees here and from the homegrown Byron orchard appears Chris, ambling by, a raspy voiced young singer with a penchant for Hip Hop. A battered guitar. A toothbrush as a capo. Dirty nails and sandy feet. Chris plonked himself down amongst us, with a guitar case full of cassette tapes and lungs full of smoke and soul that would give Otis Redding a run for his money. De La Soul, Eminem and Public Enemy were on Chris’s jukebox. $5 went in the guitar case, a brown envelope of sorts, and Otis’s back catalogue got a run through, as we drunkenly attempted to whistle along.

Song after song, stragglers joined the fray, crouched down on the pavement as tins of warm beer were passed around like a sacrament. The guitar exchanged hands. Marvin Gaye draws more passers by. A group of Brazilian surfers hear us through the grapevine. An Irish lad is torn between the craic and going to bed. He was driving 12 hours down to Melbourne in the morning. Should he sacrifice sleep or the story? I wonder did he ever get there in the end? Nowhere to go, nowhere to be. Everyone had a song. Everyone had a story.

The stars began to disappear. How did we get here? Night evaporated into a bright dewy morning. The birds were getting in on the action and started warming up their vocal chords for the day ahead. Rainbow striped lorrakeets flit between the trees, dashing the sky with colour. The world started to wake up slowly and the day began again. A local shopkeeper hooshed the grate of his storefront skyward, paying no heed to the crowd of scruffy eejits huddled outside his shop, looking a bit worse for wear. No draaaaamas.

It’s funny how you look back now, as days, slide into weeks, melt into months and you realise just how different time feels when you travel. Endless, it stretches, the day moves differently. What changes? I think it’s your awareness, like you are documenting your travels in your brain, a future memory is being captured so you zoom in on every minute detail. Now I try to incorporate that into my day to day. Stretch time like the Aussies stretch vowels! Remembering when we sat on the street corner and sang as time moved around us.

Sitting in the morning sun. We’ll be sitting when the evening comes…