Bart Bear's Blog

 

Labels: aircraft, airshow, balloons, Canberra

Every year in March there is a big hot-air balloon festival in Canberra, part of the celebrations for the anniversary of the founding of the city (it is 102 this year). Aeronauts from around the world attend, bringing some quirky balloons with them. Mum and I usually drag Dad out of bed before dawn and take him to the launch site on the lawns in front of Old Parliament House. Literally thousands of Canberrans go to see the balloons take off during the week of the festival. Some mornings it is freezing cold, but this year it was milder. Preparations begin before sunrise. Most of the light comes from the burners that are busy inflating the balloons. The three balloons that I liked best are pictured. One was from the UK. It is green and has the face and ears of Yoda. Another one looks just like one of the Angry Birds. The third one is a giant dodo, advertising Dodo, one of the Australian internet companies. Dad says that it is nothing like a real dodo, but sometimes he is just a real "wet blanket", specially when he is half asleep. A thin fog rolled in just on sunrise, but the balloons launched anyway. I counted over 30 of them in the air at the same time. I like seeing them and will drag Dad out into the cold dawn again next year.

Labels: balloons, Canberra

Although the balloons were launching from Stromlo, there were a few that stayed at the usual launch site near Old Parliament House and just inflated for a while to show people how it worked. The ones that I liked best were these two giant joey kangaroos. Most baby critters are called joeys in Australia. Of course, the baby animals are tiny, but these joey balloons are huge. The building closest to us is the National Library and the one that they are looking over is the National Science and Technology Centre. Although they didn't fly on Saturday, they have been flying since then and look great in the air. I guess that they are trying to take over from QANTAS as the real "flying kangaroo".

Labels: balloons, Canberra

Every year around this time Canberra hosts a big hot-air balloon festival. It is part of Canberra Week and this year Canberra is 99 years old, so there are even more balloons attending than last year. Next year there should be bazillions of them. On Saturday we got up before sunrise and went down to the lake to see the flight. Balloons usually fly in the early morning because the weather is calmer than later in the day. Most years they launch from the lawns near Old Parliament House. We went there and guess what, the balloons were actually launching from near Mt Stromlo. The lawns were too wet and soggy after the loads of rain we had last week. So we didn't see them being inflated and launching, but Mum got some great photos of them in flight. In the top picture you can see them taking off, with Stromlo Observatory behind them. I really like the bottom picture. It shows 4 balloons near the Moon (actually they are lots closer than the Moon but you know what I mean), with the National Museum of Australia in the foreground and good reflections in the calm lake. You get good pictures just after sunrise because the light is so soft and the angle of it is low. Mum says that it is worth getting up early for pictures like this; Dad doesn't agree that it is worth getting up early for anything.

Labels: balloons, Canberra

Big Bro Trent had a party on Saturday night, for his 25th birthday. He never does anything by halves, so he had a big room at a club and lots of loud music and flashy lights. He also had lots of helium-filled balloons. Well, I ask you, what would any beardevil do? I just had to see how many balloons would be needed to let a 160 gram bear fly. Dad helped collect balloons and harnessed me up. 28 balloons later I was drifting happily across the room. The long strings made it easy for the "youngsters" on the dance floor to drag me around with them. It was great fun, until the fog machine made it too hard to see things and Dad brought me down. I really do like balloons.

Labels: balloons

I love balloons. If you get enough of them they can lift you right off the ground. Unka Mark and Dad once sent me up hundreds of meters attached to a big bundle, until Mum made them bring me back down. These are some left-over ones from Mum's 50th birthday party. They were just right for me to drift around the house with my paws just touching the floor. The trouble is that they die after a couple of days or pop in a scary way if they hit something sharp.

Labels: balloons, party