Maaike & Paul

Well, the World Championships start tomorrow, team Gibbs is all prepared and rearing to go, and I'm not there...
If anyone wants to follow their progress, log on to www.picturethisballooning.blogspot.com and follow the shenanigans.
In the meantime, I'm reduced to keeping in touch with them via the occasional phone call, and following the blog like everyone else.
Having been left behind, I am planning a little getaway maybe for myself next weekend, when my main girl at the shop is back from holidays, and before the intrepid balloonists are back in town. Maybe the 2-day horseriding pub trek up the north coast. If it all comes together, I'll post photos :>)

After Switzerland, we made our way to Las Vegas for the Photo Marketing Trade Show and Conference. No exciting pictures to show from that, so I've uploaded some from Red Rocks Canyon instead, which we managed to get to just on sunrise one morning at the end of the week.
We worked hard for a week, and then decided we needed another break, so we went to visit our friends Gordon and Susan, who live in Salt Lake City, Utah, about 20 minutes from some of the best snowfields. And of course we went skiing! The powder snow! Amazing!! It takes a different technique to ski in powder, compared to the slushy or icy snow that we're used to in Australia, but once we got the hang of it, we were off, down the beautiful back canyons and everything. It was very, very cold, but the snow was beautiful, and even the locals could not believe how much there was of it.


After seeing the amount of snow on the back verandah, and the mound of snow covering the barbecue, of course Paul had to do a barbie one night, and dug himself a path to it. Very different from an Aussie Barbie! Have a look at the layers in the snow on the edge of the path. Paul actually really liked shovelling snow, although I think the novelty would wear off pretty quickly. In the picture behind Paul are the mountains where we went skiing.

Well, here we are in sunny Switzerland.
We drove down from Bristol, England, where Cameron Balloons had generously lent us a balloon complete with car and trailer, and we drove down through France to Chateau d'Oex. It's a beautiful valley, surrounded by huge snowy mountains. You can fly up or down the valley, fly along and down the next valley to Gruyeres and its castle, or go up high and fly over the mountains themselves. Absolutely gorgeous, breathtaking, fantastic, beautiful, stunning, exciting! You name it. We've already decided that once is not enough, and we have to come again. Soon. So, who would like to come and crew for us? Launch and packup is on snowy paddocks, so no muddy balloon. It's cold, though, especially in the last couple of days. We had one bad-weather day on Tuesday, but the rest of the time has been spectacular. The only thing stopping you from flying all day is the fact that you have to stop for more fuel from time to time. Oh, yes, and the crew wants to have lunch, too.
Paul was hoping to do a long-distance flight all the way into Italy, but with the winds the way they've been, it has not been possible so far, and it doesn't look like the next couple of days are favourable for such a flight either. We did nearly make it to France on Wednesday. We stay hopeful and keep packing passports, just in case.

Well, we've arrived safe and sound after a looong plane trip into cold wintry Netherlands. Luckily we've hit a patch of reasonably good weather, and the locals say it's actually not cold at all, but for us Aussies coming from beach weather, it's quite a change. Good for acclimatising to Swiss weather, anyway. It's only going to get colder!
We've made a whirlwind of visits to Maaike's various family members, and we've got one more day of that planned before heading off to Bristol, UK, to pick up the balloon. This is the old town hall in the new city that Dorinde (Maaike's sister) is moving to next month. Take a look at the bells in the bell tower! Very pretty sound, too.
Other than that, Paul's been telling Maaike off for buying too much liquorice, "because our luggage is already overweight as it is".

By now we're all settled back in again after our trip to Japan, and we've dealt with Christmas and New Year. I just thought I should share some photos of what we were up to for a month in November.


Some of the artwork that was printed by Sean Kavanagh, we were the most professional looking National team as far as vehicle artwork was concerned!

This was the view from our bedroom window at Asahidake-Onsen, in the mountains of Hokkaido. The snow did melt by the time our few days there were up, but it looked like a magical fairytale for a while...

This is Maaike looking rather cold on one of our walks through the village, note the steam coming off the creek, it's all hot water!

We went for a walk up to the volcano. Because the paths were hollowed out and the snow was melting, they were like running streams. So we decided to follow the bear prints up the mountain. At least they were pointing in the opposite direction!

Paul standing next to a fumarole, busily fuming away. The smell... No wonder the bears didn't try to eat us, we must have smelt like a couple of matchsticks after all that.

Interesting intersections at Motegi. Try to determine the centre of this one.

Mizuho quite liked the attitude of 'Team Ed' (Edwin Michell) and got right into it. This is them at Haga Town Hall, before afternoon briefing. Mind you, they stayed there like that during briefing as well.

Finally, this was team Gibbs, all sporting the bandanna given to us by our last and best volunteer Motegi crew member. From left to right, Deano, Mizuho, Paul, Maaike and Ryan. The 'Dangerous Australians'.

On Friday the 11th of August 2006, Paul Gibbs and Kiff Saunders succeeded in their attempt to break the Australian record for a flight to altitude in a hot-air-balloon.
Three Australian parachutists joined the effort in an attempt to break both the Australian record for a jump from altitude, as well as a distance record in their 'wingsuits', which allow them to fly horizontally rather than vertically before deploying their parachutes.
As it turned out, it was too cold for the jumpers to break their record, but they had a great wingsuit flight anyway after a jump from about 21000 feet.

Paul and Kiff kept ascending after the parachutists jumped, and made it to about 33500 feet before making the decision to return to terra firma.

These photos show the team getting ready and checking the equipment out the front of the house at Mildura the day before the practise flight on Thursday the 10th.
Here are Paul and Kiff pre-breathing oxygen on the launch field for an hour before the flight, in order to rid their blood of Nitrogen, to avoid getting the bends on the way up.

Note especially the cool tie-dye parachute packs!

As it was very cold at altitude on the day of the flight (-57 degrees!), the team had to wear the warmest gear, and ensure that there was no exposed skin. And the balloon at altitude even created its own cloud!

Congratulations to them both!

A photo of my favourite balloon:



Oh, and the pair of giant underpants that Paul flew over Melbourne the other day. That was great fun.