Monday 6 August 2012

My Hot Air Balloon Ride :)

Last weekend's adventures: Hot Air Ballooning

My boyfriend and I were lucky enough to get an opportunity to go on a Hot air balloon for free by family friends, who realised they were scared of heights once they had already bought their non-refundable tickets. 

Bill Harrop's Original Balloon Safari's, situated in the Magaliesberg valley in Pretoria, is the most welcoming place ever! We arrived (06:30am) and were immediately offered coffee and freshly baked muffins (still warm *Yummy*). As we warmed up by the fire, we watch the Balloons being "inflated".

Our Balloon was the last, out of three, to take off, so we got some really nice pictures of the balloons rising in the sunrise. The pilot of our Balloon was none other than Bill Harrop himself. He has been flying Balloons for 35 years now! Once we were in our basket, which feels very secure, we started ascending. The Balloon is controlled by natural winds so we were travelling really slowly at first. It was quite nice watching all the farmers below and touching the tree tops every now and then.

Unfortunately it isn't as green because of the chilly, dry, winter, but the view was still pretty spectacular! We went higher up where the wind was a bit stronger so we started moving faster. Once we were about 1km from the ground, we could see over the Magaliesberg. It was so mindblowing because we could see both Pretoria CBD (to our left) and Johannessburg CBD (top our right) from where we were, in the Balloon. 


Once we landed we got served some champagne and waited for our shuttle bus to take us back to the launch site, for breakfast. We were then awarded our Citation's of Bravery, which was a very nice touch to end off the whole experience.

Ballooning should be on everyone's bucket list. It truly is a once in a lifetime experience.

Contact Bill Harrop's original balloon safari's on 011 705 3201
Visit their website here
And view more pictures on my personal Facebook account here :)

Follow me on Twitter and like my Facebook Page for regular updates.

6 comments:

  1. OH MY WORD!!!!!! I am so jealous! A hot air balloon ride is on my bucket list! What an amazing adventure!! (Excuse all the !! But I got all excited when I read your post. Ha-ha)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It really is amazing and I hope you get to go in one soon :)

      Delete
  2. WOW! This is on my "Dream List"! I am VERY HAPPY that you got to experience this and super envious :D I've wanted to do the one in Paarl which goes over the winelands - but at almost R3000 a person I have to save up :P Thank you so much for sharing this XXX

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I also thought it was a bit pricey but it's so worth every cent! Thanks for commenting :)

      Delete
  3. Wow! That really does sound amazing!! Lucky you!! Glad you got to experience something so amazing and for free!! XX

    ReplyDelete
  4. Modern hot air balloons, with an onboard heat source, were pioneered by Ed Yost, beginning in the 1950s. Because of this, we are glad to say we humans could fly.

    ReplyDelete

Comment Here :)