As you all know, I part-time for the local paper, the South Shropshire Journal. A Journalist there is a good friend of mine... Hannah Costigan. She regularly does features for the SSJ and I photograph them to accompany the article. As stated, I am the Luckiest photographer ever! and I shall tell you for why dearest reader...
We are doing a feature on a local Ballooning company called Espiritu and we got to go along and actually take a ride. Of course we were working but I actually went up into the sky, I flew!
I am so happy I can't stop grinning :D
We get to Church Stretton for about a quarter to six and meet the other people, Susie and Peter, who will be going on the trip with us, introductions are made all around and the Espiritu guys turn up with a very interesting trailer. The basket we would be riding in was on top and I started to get even more excited!
Ian and Iain made their introductions and we all helped get the balloon set up, the balloon itself was unrolled and checked over by the Ia(i)ns. I was surprised at the length of it, 90ft long and considered just a tad larger than a personal sized one! The balloon envelope was opened out and the guys brought out a couple of industrial fans. These were used to fill the balloon with air, the burners would heat it up after, but the 90ft balloon needed to be inflated. The actual inflation took less than fifteen minutes (which impressed me yet again) and then it was only 2 minutes to heat the air inside enough so the balloon stood upright.
To say I was impressed at the speed would be an understatement.
It was time to go, Ian briefed us on what to do during take off and landing and various bits and bobs we needed to do, basic common sense really. We got into the basket, sat down and waited for Ian to give the all clear. Iain waved us goodbye and made ready to follow us, he was the retrieval person for us.
Ian pushed levers on the side of the burners, they gushed flame and heated the air inside the balloon and the tops of our heads got warm as well, (I reckon that it would be nice to have that happen on a cold winters day) after a couple of minutes we were off, it was so gentle, like a feather in the wind, we floated higher and higher and although we were moving over the Long Mynd, we never felt one breath of air, it wasn't cold or hot, just very peaceful and still.
Everything became small, a few early-birds came out of their front doors to pick up the paper or their pint of milk, looked up and saw us floating by, shielding their eyes from the sun they waved and we waved back it was thrilling.
We moved to the west, over the mountains which looked like creases in silk, the grass became one solid colour. It looked pristine, no weeds or damage, no marks.
You could imagine what it looked like before people. We drifted north west and Ian pointed out landmarks to us and a little bit about them and the history of the place, it was interesting and welcome, we could understand the things we were seeing.
I never knew that their were hill-forts on the Long Mynd, they are roughly oval in shape and you can only see them when the light hits them just right. We were lucky to see one and I spotted another in the distance. They were markings from another time, another world and there was something both eerie and sad about them.
We carried on drifting where the wind took us and not a breath stirred our hair. We were going with the wind, letting it take us where it would and seeing everything it showed us. I felt like a bird, soaring through, seeing what there was to see and just being free from worries.
Ian said that it was nearly time to land, it had been an hour and ten already. I felt as if I had only been up for five minutes. Ian started to look for a place to land, he called Iain on the radio and told him where we were headed, after choosing a field, Ian brought us lower and lower and just as we were about to get ready to land, a heard of cattle entered the field and Ian had to pull up, he said that it wouldn't be fair to the farmer if he landed in that field and spooked the livestock so we went up and up, looking for another.
We found one, quite close to the road and the landing was so gentle, the basket touched the ground, skewed around a bit and we were gently rocked from side to side as Ian let the warm air out of the balloon envelope.
Iain wasn't far behind us and as the balloon was deflating, he turned up with the trailer.
Packing away was pretty sad, we helped, of course, but I think we all just wanted to go back up and just float around some more.
All in all it took about half an hour to pack everything away and it was great fun, trying to put an air tight bundle of material into a pretty small bag is a riot, every time you pushed on end, the other would pop up and your partner would shove it down and vice versa, much funnage.
The Ia(i)ns went to find the land owner and give him a gift to say thank you for letting them use his field, they couldn't find him so I imagine that they left it on the porch or something.
After every thing was packed away we all piled into the landrover and bounced back to the starting point for a glass of sparkling fruit water and a certificate.
I highly recommend this a lifetime experience for anyone, it is certainly amazing!
