Melbourne, unlike Sydney, with its handful of monumental postcard-perfect icons, is a city that reveals itself slowly, inviting the investor to take the time to discover its charms. Unlike Sydney, which offers itself promiscuously to any visitor who cares to take a half-day tour to see the Bridge, the Harbour and the Opera House, Melbourne spreads its attractions out, hiding them across the city.
Of course, this is what makes Melbourne such an interesting adventure – when you catch a tram up Swanston street to stumble across the mélange of fruit, vegetable, and flower traders, each proudly Australian and yet each inspired by the traditions of their ancestors from Greece, Italy, China and every corner of the globe, gathered together under the sprawling roofs of the Queen Victoria Market, it feels like a revelation, a personal discovery.
Or you can join the strollers down Acland street in St Kilda, where the evidence of the influence of Central European migrants is clear from the rows of wickedly decadent cake and coffee shops, where you can choose between hot bagels, sour cherry strudel dusted with icing sugar, fabulously rich baked ricotta cheese cake, and a myriad of other delights, washed down with strong, deliciously bitter coffee, before going for a wander down to the pier, where yachts wait to take the traveler for a sail on the bay, perhaps to see one of Melbourne’s best kept secrets – a colony of Little Penguins, one of the only such in close proximity to such a major metropolis.
It costs ten quid to get into London’s famous Kew Gardens, and on a busy day you’ll have to elbow your way through lines of camera-bearing tourists to get there. Melbourne, on the other hand, has so many different parks and gardens, all free to visit and most of them unfenced, that it is hard to know which to choose. Some, like the Royal Melbourne Botanical Gardens, with its native ducks and the black antipodean swans, are finely sculpted masterpieces of land-scaping, with beautifully laid out lawns and a beguiling mix of native and exotic plant life. Buy some stale bread to feed to the birds, and enjoy the day. Other parks, like Studley Park, are more wild and unkempt, a patch of native forest inside the city boundaries that stretches down to merge into the river flats around Melbourne’s main waterway, the Yarra River. Here, you can rent a canoe or kayak to paddle upstream so as to allow the currents to bring you back to your base on your way home.
Of course, Melbourne has its more obvious attractions, too. A couple of decades ago, Melbourne’s Docklands were a decaying industrial zone located in the unfashionable western suburbs. Since then, seemingly overnight, an area around Victoria Harbour that includes three kilometers of river frontage has been transformed into a glitzy, slick urban centre and entertainment precinct. With a spectacular harbour, stunning views, unique urban art, grand promenades, historical wharves, new marinas and parkland, the Docklands has been billed as one of the world’s greatest urban domains.
To get a picture of Sydney, take a cruise on a yacht or catch a ferry – you can see most of the good stuff from water. But to see Melbourne in its entirely, you need to look at it from the air – and one of the most exciting ways to do this is to float across the city in a hot air balloon. There are now several balloon operators who offer sunrise floats over the city, but of these, Balloon Sunrise’s Melbourne by Balloon trip is perhaps the oldest and most established.
Like sailing, ballooning is extremely dependent on the weather, and particularly on the winds. As states Balloon Sunrise pilot, Rob Deeble, the wind is usually at its calmest in the early morning, just after dawn. With the sun rising, it is also a particularly beautiful time to take flight. But as Rob says: “The weather may look hunky-dory from the ground, but it may be quite different up high. Also, sometimes the weather may seem fine early on in the day but wind speeds can change dramatically”. With all licensed commercial operations adhering to the strictest possible safety standards, then, the pre-flight weather check with the meteorology experts is a vitally important ritual. Participants in a flight will usually be asked to call to confirm their bookings the night before departure, when the ground crew and pilots have something of an idea of what the weather will be like the next morning. Even so, it is often necessary to call in the pre-dawn hours of the morning itself for final confirmation. Quite simply, a reputable commercial balloon operation will not fly if their pilot are not completely convinced that it will be safe, even at the risk of disappointing eager participants. While balloons fly all year around, at certain times, participants may have to allow a window of several days to ensure a good chance of getting a flight.
As a group of newbie balloonists sit in the lobby of Melbourne’s Grand Hyatt Hotel, crossing and uncrossing their legs and looking nervous and excited in equal measure, Rob and Nick, pilots with several thousand flying hours between them, talk laconically into their walkie-talkies, making a last minute check with the bureau of meteorology. “Light north-easterly winds, a perfect morning for ballooning,” says a smooth voice at the other end. Rob and Nick chuckle at the delivery. “I think he’d really like a job as an announcer on commercial radio,” Nick says. But it’s good news. After a few moments consultation, they announce that this morning’s departure will take place from Melbourne’s Docklands, One of eight possible sites, the choice depending on prevailing conditions.
Setting up the balloon is both a dramatic spectacle and a hands-on learning experience, with everyone expected to help. As on a sailing boat, no one is just a passenger. Each new balloonist is expected to help lay the envelope of the balloon, stretching it out as flat as possible. Rob and Nick direct the proceedings, keeping a sharp eye to ensure that everything is going smoothly. A small basket, capable of holding eight passengers and the pilot, is attached to the envelope before the burner is secured in place.
It is the burner that provides the means for a hot air balloon to ascend. Put simply, a hot air balloon works because hot air is lighter than cool air. If enough hot air is contained within the envelope of the balloon, the balloon will rise into the air. However, it takes a massive amount of hot air to lift the weight of nine people and the equipment required to carry them - about 65,000 cubic feet of heated air to lift a weight of a thousand pounds. Throughout the flight, when the envelope cools or when extra lifting power is required, the pilot will ignite the burner to add hot air, just as one might add hot water to a bath tub to keep the temperature at the right level.
Once the envelope is full, the passengers take up their positions in the basket. Rob, who is still fiddling with the burner, takes a moment to explain the ground rules. “Right, from now on in, you are all officially ballast. If two of you leapt out right now, the balloon would ascend rapidly. This would not be a good thing. Stay where you are and never leave the balloon until I tell you it’s okay.” He pauses and adds dryly: “Of course, that should be fairly obvious where we are a thousand meters up in the sky. But it holds after we come in to land, too.”
The balloon is unsecured from the ropes holding it to the floor. The flight is underway. This is nothing like a commercial aeroplane flight, nor even like a joy ride in a helicopter or light plane. No, it is like sailing, sailing through the sky, higher and higher by the second. One feels weight-less, as if you are drifting along, floating on air.
Down below is the Docklands, now illuminated in the rich orange light of the morning sun, and prettier, somehow, at this distance. The magnificent parks and gardens, the spectacular skyline in the dawn, the Arts Centre spire, the challenge of Federation Square, the bulk of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the peaceful green of the Botanic Gardens, the hum of the rush hour traffic and through the middle of everything the Yarra River, winding its way from the leafy suburbs out past the industrious harbour and Westgate bridge to the shining waters of Port Phillip Bay, are all clearly visible.
Except when Rob ignites the burner, which hisses like a cheap camping stove, all is silent, apart from the occasional garrulous exclamation from one of the passengers. One turns to Rob and grins broadly for no particular reason, then asks “Doin’ okay there, Rob?” “Yeah, sure,” he replies coolly, “Think I’ve got my vertigo under control.” And there is silence again.
The balloon drifts to the east, away from the rapidly rising sun. While the winds are sufficiently strong, the balloon moves with them, at almost the same speed, so it feels perfectly still and peaceful –just the way it does in a sailing boat when you have the winds behind you and you are going full ahead.
After just under an hour, we are drifting over North Balwyn – not bad timing, really, probably a quicker trip than it would be on crowded roads in a car. At this point, Rob starts thinking about finding a safe place to bring the balloon in to land. Just as the point of departure is determined by the weather, so is the landing site. Later, Rob tells the passengers that Balloon Sunrise has established good relations with shires and councils across Melbourne, to facilitate landing on more than fifty possible landing sites across the city, including football fields, parks and other open spaces. On this particular morning, he chooses a large park in North Balwyn.
Depending on the prevailing winds, the landing can actually be quite a bumpy affair. Rob brings the balloon down at a very slow rate to land it at 45 degree angle to the floor, to help the basket lose speed and come to a halt quicker. It is a perfect landing, more gentle than most aeroplane landings by far, and we land upright. Sometimes, Rob admits, the basket will actually end up on its side with the passengers lying horizontal with their torsos sticking out of the top of the basket. With side rail supports and ropes to hang on to make sure nobody falls out, this is not dangerous, just part of the ballooning experience.
Rob allows the balloon to deflate partially and gives the word that it’s safe to get out. Just as setting the balloon up is a hands-on experience involving all passengers, so is the process of deflating the envelope and packing it away. The passengers from a chain to fold the balloon and pack it up, before lifting it up onto the van, together with the basket and burner.
Back on land and with everything packed, it is now time for the final ritual of the hot air balloon experience – the champagne breakfast. Back at the Grand Hyatt, excited passengers, hungry and thirsty from their exertions, shovel down plates of eggs, bacon, toast with honey and jam, fresh fruits and muesli, all washed down with strong, hot coffee and champagne.
With the crowd of new balloonists, some joined by children, friends and spouses eager for details of the trip, seated around him, Rob, who has already amply demonstrated his skills as a pilot, shows that he is something of a raconteur as well, smoothly answering the myriad of questions that are showered upon him and regaling the party with stories and anecdotes about the history of hot air ballooning. At one point, he proposes a champagne toast, then pauses to explain exactly why the drink of champagne is traditional after a flight. “In the early days, when the first hot air balloonists took off in France, they were often forced to land in farmers’ fields with no prior notice or warning. Of course, the farmers were a bit freaked out by this. They probably thought the balloon was an apparition from hell, or something like that. So, the balloonists used to leap out and offer the farmers a bottle of bubbly for their trouble. That usually smoothed things over. All we are doing is continuing the tradition,” he says.
And with that, the party laugh heartily for no good reason and clink their glasses. Not, they seem to think, that you need an excuse for drinking champagne after floating over Melbourne.
Balloon Sunrise offers commercial flights over Melbourne and the Yarra Valley, Victoria’s prime wine growing region, approximately forty-five minutes from Melbourne. For further details, please contact Balloon Sunrise at:
Telephone: +61 3 9730 2422
Toll Free: 1 800 992 105
Fax: +61 3 9730 2433
Email: info@hotairballooning.com.au
Website: www.hotairballooning.com.au
