Up up and away

Dragging ourselves out of bed at the very unfamiliar time of 5am we were glad to see beautiful clear and calm conditions and during the 40 minute drive to the meeting point we noticed little patches of mist in low lying fields.

We were meeting in Beynac and it was a contrast seeing this village with hardly a tourist in sight compared to the packed village we had seen and canoed past yesterday.

Before long we were joined by a family of three and a father and his adult son who were locals celebrating Dad's birthday. Our pilot, Francis, arrived and we were on our way to the launch site, balloon and basket in the trailer behind.

Being a bit of a veteran at balloon rides (hahaha) I knew that the groundwork would take awhile and watched Julie who was wide eyed with excitement and a tiny bit of apprehension as preparations got underway.

Francis had a very efficient helper and it wasn't too long before we were briefed on landing position and then clambering over and into the basket and gently floating up. It was obviously perfect conditions as we saw five other balloons popping out one by one from over the hills to our west.

Fields of sunflowers stretched in one direction as château after château popped into view in the other. The villages of La Roque Gageac and Beynac were simply stunning and it felt like we could literally have stepped out into the courtyard of Richard the Lionheart's castle atop the cliff.

Beynac

All too soon Francis landed us perfectly in a hay field (after gently nudging a few tree tops on the way down) and we celebrated with café and croissants in the field – an absolutely exhilarating experience.

One of the other passengers was a local who had brought his Dad a ticket as a birthday present and he told us that his daughters favourite animal was a koala and that she had planted a eucalyptus tree in their yard! Luckily I had a spare soft toy back at the house and I arranged to drop it into the local Office de Tourisme for him to collect. (The next day I got a Facebook message thanking me and advising me he had left some homemade jam for me!)

All in all a beautiful experience, if you're going to try hot air ballooning the country that pioneered it is a great place to start!

On the way home we couldn't resist the opportunity to photograph the magnificent sunflower fields, passing these on previous days we had been put off by traffic and extreme heat but this morning was perfect .

After a slow day savouring our early morning experience, Russell and I left the girls organising dinner whilst we drove back to Bordeaux to collect Fiona whose ballooning career was unfortunately going to have to wait until another day.

 

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