Note
Rest Day: well hardly, as Deb and I were up at 4:30am to catch our 5:15am appointment with Global Ballooning to collect our 50th Birthday present from Briohny and Cameron: a hot air balloon flight in the Yarra Valley. Fortunately the trip started at our Motel at Fergussons Winery so we just had to walk down to the winery.
Great fun trip! Once we reached the launch site (in Yarra Glen), had to help with unpacking and inflating balloon, then away we went. A bit of low cloud but we soon burst through that to see a brilliant sunrise. Only trouble was the wind at ground level was 2.5kph but once we hit 3000ft it was suddenly 50kph, so we raced along too quickly and had to drop back down below cloud level and it seemed we would have a very short flight. Our pilot did a great job however and we managed to stay aloft for almost an hour and then an almost perfect landing next to the support vehicle in some farmers paddock!
Packed up the balloon (sounds easy but wasn't) and then back to the winery for champagne and breakfast. Great morning - thanks kids!