Hot air ballooning has always been on my to-do-list.  And you can only imagine how ecstatic I was when I finally booked my balloon scenic flight. Carolina at Lake67 was fantastic and arranged everything, even transport from and to my accommodation.

It was raining heavily in Cairns when I woke up at 3am but fortunately it cleared up 2 hours later when I arrived at the Atherton Tablelands. It was still dark when the Raging Thunder crew started inflating the balloons.

What a great spectacle it was just to watch these two giants get bigger and bigger as the flaming tongues of fire entered the inside. I knew however that more fun was yet to come.

First, we hopped onboard the shuttle bus and chased the first balloon until it landed in the middle of a field. Raging Thunder Hot Air Ballooning is a registered ‘Charter Airline’ authorised by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and it is governed by the same regulations that apply to any small passenger airline. That’s why all the passengers waiting for their flight got a boarding pass and were requested to wait on a trailer for their balloon to arrive. Luckily, I didn’t need my passport, haha!

The crew were quick and very professional while exchanging the passengers in the balloon. Once in, we went through a short safety briefing regarding the take off and landing. What a feeling it was to be finally up in the air! We could see the shadow of the balloon we were flying in which was cast over the beautiful Mareeba Valley.

The flight was very serene as the wind speed was only 6 knots that morning. I guess this is the biggest joy of hot air ballooning – you don’t really feel like you’re moving even though you are… Down below, some 760 meters away, we could see mango farms with the trees neatly lined up and groups of kangaroos scattered around in between the mango trees looking up and wondering at the sight of the balloon hovering majestically above them. The landscape was savannah-like with the Barron River winding through the valley.

After 30 minutes of this tranquil sky adventure, we landed. The landing itself was a soft one in spite of what you can see in the photo below showing the balloon tipping over. For safety reasons we were asked to bend our knees upon landing, as the balloon didn’t have any shock absorbers 😉

I had a quick chat with our cheerful pilot, Yosh (us shown in the picture above) who told me the balloon envelopes could hold up to 435 thousand cubic feet of hot air. For those of you who aren’t sure how much that is, just imagine a shoe box is equivalent to one cubic feet.

The passengers willingly joined in to help deflate the balloon, which turned out to be heaps of fun, especially for the kids who went absolutely crazy. The male passengers helped to roll the deflated balloon, carry it and pack into a  basket similar to a ‘laundry’ box! I couldn’t believe it fitted in there! (see the bottom-right picture above).

At the end, all of the passengers got their flight certificate.

Big thanks to the whole crew: Yosh, Elliah, Kenji, Travis, Henry and Shinbone for making my first hot air ballooning experience special ☺ Thank you Lake67 for organizing my trip! Highly recommended!

Justyna