Mudgee 2025 – A Hot Air Balloon Experience

Our kids are beautiful people – they buy the best gifts ever, which tend to be experiences rather than stuff that clutters up your cupboard.

This one was next level – however the timing was unfortunately and unknowingly awkward, with COVID arriving just weeks after their gift.

The fantastic people at Balloon Aloft Mudgee worked with us – over four years later – to turn this dream into a reality.

All this despite my absolute horror of open heights.

During the day before we were continually updated with weather patterns and likelihood of our flight taking place, with safety obviously their overriding priority. Then the message came – “All systems go – see you at 4:30am tomorrow”

We arrived at a central meeting point and boarded a small bus to transport all 19 of us brave souls about 20 minutes outside of Mudgee, across a barren field in below zero temperatures.

That was good for me as I didn’t know whether I was shaking through nerves or the cold.

Together, like a well drilled team we assisted with the preliminary set up of the basket and ballon and underwent a pretty full on safety briefing.

And within ten minutes the call of “Quick climb in” rang out.

This is where it gets real. No turning back now. We were all allocated a space in the basket, did a practice landing and then breathlessly awaited advice from our very experienced pilot that we were about to lift off.

The smile on my face was definitely an act.

Then silence aboard from the passengers while the jets filling the beast of a balloon roared and the basket creaked….

Then slowly but surely – liftoff

As soon as we shifted and lifted, my fear disappeared. I felt comfortable and confident with all that was about to happen.

A bit more juice required to get us up and soaring and before we knew it away we went off into the wild blue yonder – which was literally just dawning.

Next minute we were lifting through 600 feet when the pilot reminded us he can’t steer this thing. At all. So he has to use elevation to pick up air flows at different speeds and directions to sort of head where he thinks we may go.

At 600 feet and rising to 1000 feet when the jets turn off you are engulfed with sheer silence. And despite my unfounded expectations the basket is as steady as can be.

And the sun comes up over the ranges to everyone’s delight.

Soaring casually at 45kmh across vineyards, horse breeding properties, lakes, hills is like no other experience I’ve known. The world (ground) looks totally alien from up here.

After about 45 minutes which passed like it was five minutes the Pilot started looking for places to land. They have around 20 different farms that they have arrangements with to put down and it all depends on the wind.

He was in constant contact with his ground crew suggesting possible landing zones and it was fun watching them cross cross the roads and fields below trying to keep up.

And below we could see the place we were aiming for – I don’t think the flick of sheep saw us coming

Safely down. And what an adrenaline rush.

Packing up can often sound like a real pain in the neck – today it was almost a pleasure to walk around inside the balloon once on the ground to see the real size of it.