A Marvellous Mother's Day

May 20, 2025
3 min read

Sunday 11 May

Our Sunday morning alarm was most unwelcome - but it was our last ballooning opportunity so we staggered out bleary eyed, watched the piball float off into the darkness and set off in convoy for the far side of Darfield to launch.

Eleven balloons took to the skies and floated off in the general direction of Hororata - it was a beautiful morning with a fabulous sausage of cloud lying over the other side of Darfield.

Louis & Abby were crewing & chasing for Dutch 🇳🇱 Oven (Jez, Ettie & Mario in the basket) while I got a chance to hop in with Josh & Annabel below Balloons over Waikato with Georgia chasing us in a leisurely fashion.

The flight was wonderful - Annabel got to pilot it for much of the trip as she flies in Canada. The snow on the Southern Alps had receded, but still provided a stunning backdrop, and again the landscape below was fascinating.

Our co-balloonists today included Scott (red/yellow/blue), Puff, Rolf in the rainbow swirl, Darren in Anti-Social the black & colourful hopper & of course Jeremy & Ettie in Dutch Oven.

Dutch 🇳🇱 Oven took a very different flight path to the rest of us - heading closer to the mountains and across the Fontera land and towards their factory. I love the pic below where it looks like they are doing target practice over the irrigation circles!

Flying over Darfield there were many lifestyle blocks on the outer edge of town, and seemingly many new ones under construction. Further into town and along the railway track there were some very opulent and well planted mansion-like properties which looked amazing from the air. It was also cool to witness the Alpine Express coming through below us - on its way up to Arthur's Pass and on to the West Coast.

As we caught up with the leading balloons, we crossed above the cloudy strip creating beautiful balloon shadow rainbow auroras on the damp misty cloud below. It is absolutely fascinating how the refraction of the light around the heated balloon envelope creates a kind of mirage not only on the clouds but also on the ground below - see pic on the right.

Amazingly, after an hour and a half in the air, six of the eleven balloons landed within 4 contiguous paddocks just metres from the Ballooning Canterbury HQ, with Dutch 🇳🇱 Oven just over the other side of the HQ! Josh took over controls from Annabel as we crossed the Waikirikiri or Selwyn River just by the Bealey Road bridge and we drifted around trying to decide where best to land. Mike had already come down in a grassy field to our right, Puff, Scott and another Oakley balloon set down in a green field over the hedge two and a half fields further over, Blue Print came down on a ploughed field to our left and we nearly joined them except the wind would not quite take us there, and we finally came to land in the stubble field between Mike & Blueprint and just over the hedge from the others!

Coming in I snapped this pic below of the Ballooning Canterbury guys getting their passengers to help with the folding and loading of their enormous rainbow coloured envelope - and it was only afterwards that I spotted Dutch 🇳🇱 Oven peeping through the hedge over behind Mike's place!

Final celebratory breakfast at the Hororata Hall with speeches and thanks to all involved. Then we said our goodbyes to the friends we had made this week and headed back to pack up Banjo. It would be lovely to catch up with Annabel & Mario again on their travels before they head back to Canada in July. Their hosts Peter & Janelle had driven them from Darfield to Hororata and back in the most stunning Pontiac that had been in Peter's family for 3 generations - wow!