Stew Bloody Pendus

The highlight of the Queenstown visit, in feet as well, has been the dawn ascent of the winterpoodles. They achieved 7,300 feet with 2 Scots, 12 giggling Chinese (Dark Mavis opines that this gives a whole new meaning to Chinese Takeaway), a stuffed monkey and a NZ pilot in a wicker basket with a vast balloon above them containing seven tons of air.

We rose at 5.45 am, a world record, and were in the mini bus at 6.15am. We drove to a field about 5 miles from the town. Here was a bus, a trailer, and a limp lump of colourful material. On the front of the pilot's land cruiser I paid by visa card through an electronic satellite connection. Next some large hairdryers were put in place and slowly a balloon appeared above us in the dawn sky. We were told where the life jackets were and that the basket would float in water. Then all aboard into four compartments in the wicker basket. Next some very noisy blasts from the gas burner above us and within a few minutes we lifted ever so gently off the ground. beautiful. Very quickly we were looking down at the fields with their morning moisture and could hear the 'mews' of the fawns belonging to the deer flock. With ease and no turbulence we cruised through a two thousand feet and could see the sun peeping over the top of the mountains and the mist hugging the rivers. There was low cloud further off, in wisps.

Sometime at this point Mr Poodle had a most uncomfortable feeling commonly described as panic. Being a public school boy the stiff upper lip was maintained but the thought that the ground was hundreds of feet below and all that seperated him from it was a basket and the skill of this very nonchalant New Zealander who answered question as to any idea where we would land with the reply "There's no point having a plan as I will only be disappointed," was paramount.

My admiration for brother Ham who works in this medium intensified. I realised that I am a ground man, in fact love the ground under foot.

So for twenty minutes I think I experienced what is called 'the fear of flying'. But the cure was the sheer beauty of the earth below, the patterns, the long shadows of a new day and the peaks of the mountain ranges. All the same we were only in a basket.

Georgina was captivated and leaning frightenly over the side, not a care in the world.

We soared to 7,300 feet, at one point rising at 600 feet per minute. The maximum is 1200 feet per minute.

The time arrived to return to earth; apparently the gas supply is limited.

So we descended to about 20 feet above a golf course and just avoided a hole in one. The pilot was on the phone to ground crew and said he didn't know where we would land, but he had a brainwave, gunned the burners and we rose to 1,000 feet and got blown to the other side of the valley. To cut a long story short we skiimmed across a road swooped up a bank, cleared a barbed wire fence and hopped down in a new cut corn field. Perks was out first and first in line for the breakfast table that miracuously appeared with white tablecloth, Champagne, croissants, fruit and coffee. To further Chinese giggling and horseplay we were presented with diplomas attesting to our status as Balloonatics. My favourite status was being on the ground again.

One of the aviators wrote in the visitors book 'Stew Bloody Pendus', hard to better that.