Ride in a hot air balloon.

I had wanted to have a balloon flight for a long time & received a balloon flight from my mum as a present for the Christmas of 2003.

Early one morning in May 2004, my sister´s better half, Brett picked me up from the family home in Fareham & we drove to Alton for our balloon flight.

When we arrived, we along with others on the flight, helped lay out the balloon ready to have the air in it warmed up to inflate the balloon for our flight. We were all soon stood in the basket as we slowly rose into the sky & floated across the fields & homes around Alton & Hampshire.

The thing that struck me the most as we slowly floated across Hampshire, was how clear the voices of people on the ground are when you are floating above them. I could hear what people were saying as they talked about us & waved at us as we floated over. After a few hours of drifting through a blue sky, our pilot picked a field for us to descend into and brought us down in it. After a soft bump, we landed on the basket's side & all clambered out. Our chase vehicle soon caught up with us and we were all given a glass of champagne to toast the flight.

It was a great experience & one that I would like to repeat maybe in America over some National Park.

Photos from the day.