Wow what a morning!!
Left the house at 3.30am and set off for Lydden circuit. Arrived to find lots of balloons already on the launch field, so we started setting up. Pilot breifing was at 6am where we were given the go ahead to fly!! Woo hoo!
Time to get cold inflated and prepared! Left Richard, Geoff & Jon cold inflating the balloon whist I packed our picnic hamper and immersion suits!
First balloon took off at 07:00hrs, this balloon was due to report back with the wind conditions, unfortunately this led to lots of waiting around trying to decide if we should go or not??? The wind was slightly too much to the left....... Finally there was lots of chatting and the fans started up again. We were going to go for it!
Richard inflated the balloon, as soon as it stood up I got all of our stuff on board and climbed in ready for a windy take off! Pilot checks all done so Geoff climbed aboard, we had to wait a few minutes whilst the other balloon around us took off, then we were given the all clear! We left the ground at 07:30!! Wow what a great feeling, 30 balloons ahead of us and 20 behind!! We were heading straight to the coast :-)
It was soooo amazing watching the balloons heading for the Dover coastline, lots of whooping & cheering in our basket!
Crossed the coastline at about 7.40am doing 30 knots, yikes!!
Great feeling just floating over the channel overtaking the ferries :-)
We all had a fly whilst we were over the water, but always trying to maintain the right direction and speed.
It took 40 minutes to get over the water, but has most definitely got to be the best 40minutes ever! We tried to get some left & land at Calais airport but just drifted off to the right. Came across a great field about twenty minutes into Calais just to the right of where Packhouse landed, so we landed there! Our crew was with us within ten minutes of landing so we got packed up and opened the champagne!! What an amazing day :-)