Bart Bear's Blog

Every year around the end of March there is a big balloon festival in Canberra. Mum always drags Dad along to see the balloons launch early one morning during the festival. I love going to see this. You can walk up close to the balloons, talk to the pilots and ground crew and even feel the heat from the burners as the hot air gets pumped in to inflate the balloon. They take off and land real close to you. The air over the lake and the parliamentary area gets full of balloons and it is really pretty spectacular. Dad is not so impressed by this early morning stuff. He says balloons have been around for centuries and that any vehicle that has to go wherever the wind blows it is not much use to anybody. He is very grumpy in the mornings and we have to get him breakfast from the food tent before he starts to become human again. Unka Mark and Dad sent me up with balloons once. They got a real big bunch of weather balloons filled with Helium and attached me to them, hooked on a kite string then let me go. I got up real high but Mum made them get me down quick before the string broke. I thought it was fun. I would like to go up in one of these real big balloons one day, particularly in the one made like a frog.

Labels: aircraft, Canberra