The landscape is dominated by rock spires and in some places these have hats on. The area has three dormant volcanoes and 100 million years ago was covered in the rock from volcanic eruptions. This resulted in a soft layer of rock covered by a harder layer. Wind and rain has done it's work to leave thin points of rock with large harder caps.
This scenery is spectacular and to best appreciate it a local ballooning industry has flourished. We had the great thrill of a flight today.
Some of you will know Ross is scared of heights. I was not sure if this would be terrifying but we chanced it. The flight was amazing.
The first shock was just how big the balloons are. They are almost the size of an olympic pool. The basket held about twenty and felt very solid . I was anxious as we prepared to take off, however the actual takeoff was so smooth that if your eyes were closed you would miss it.
There was no wind or sense of rushing air and no sudden drops - Nice!
There was an amazing view and sense of freedom. The pilot was rather skilled and knew it. He scraped the top of a tree as we went over a cliff and joked that he was sweeping the bottom of the basket. We dropped into a narrow gully only five metres above ground and then we rose to 800 metres. He went within a metre of the top of a rock spire and at one time we touched another balloon.
The flights all start about 5.30am to get the ideal wind conditions and on our day, there were over fifty balloons in the sky.
The views of the landscape were spectacular and they were even better with the other balloons sharing our trip, above below and every direction you looked.
As we descended we watched the support trucks winding along dirt roads as they tried to anticipated our landing place. We were amazed when our pilot landed the basket on the back of the truck - wow!
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