Balloon Trip over the Desert

Mmmm this was a tricky one. It all seemed very exciting when Mark Carne suggested it but as it closer it started to get a little scary – especially since Claire arrived in Dubai earlier than planned and thus would be coming too. Anyway, nothing ventured, nothing gained, although all of us baulked at the published early start of 4.20am. However it was later revised to 5am, a bit longer in bed. Luckily at the last minute I did think to take some warm clothes – as it was a chilly 12 degrees on the ground before we took off. The balloon trip itself was a very pleasant 25 degrees since there was a huge gas fire on most of the time, just above our heads!

Our party consisted of Mark and Heather, Pete and Evelyn, Howard, Claire and I, but there were almost 40 more people to go up in the 2 balloons. We had about an hours drive (at speed) following Peter, our captain as it turned out, who collected us all from Festival City at 5.20am. He was driving a mini bus but we took our own cars as we wanted to stay in the desert afterwards for a bit of breakfast. The drive took us most of the way to Al Ain. We expected to see the balloons already inflated (the 2 largest balloons in the world Peter tells us) but no…the whole process was still happening as we arrived. A safety briefing was given to us by Peter shouting over the incredible loud noise of fan and burners filling these 2 huge balloons with hot air. In fact it was all a bit manic. However I was feeling much calmer than I had been - Peter was German and was shouting orders with apparent efficiency so I assumed that he knew what he was doing! And so it proved I must say.

As the balloon started to fill and rise the basket (holding up to 24 people) started to right itself so we were all told to jump in, into 1 of 4 passenger sections of the basket. Peter stood in a section in the middle (complete with 4 huge gas bottles) and as he continued to flare the balloon started to rise and drift eastwards quite quickly. In no time at all we were leaving the second balloon behind. We all agreed it was nice to be in the boring blue balloon as we got to look at the gorgeous rainbow balloon all the time!

We were up just in time to see the sun rise.


This shows us at a height of 3982 feet, just before we started our descent

We were airborne for about 45 minutes, and we landed in what Peter called Big Lake an area of flat and, more importantly, accessible desert. It was perhaps the scariest bit of the journey as we seemed to be coming in very fast and we had to hold on and brace ourselves for impact. However Peter was able to control the balloon in such a way that the basket landed gently, dragged a little and came to rest upright.

Our Prado was driven to the landing site by one of Peter’s staff and so the 7 of us piled in and drove back to the cars, headed out onto the sand and had a well deserved bacon butty brunch.

Jim and Ray in Dubai

Jim and his friend Ray came to visit us in November to go to the grand Prix in Abu Dhabi. However we managed to get some exploring of Dubai in as well. A trip to the desert, a trip across the Creek on the abrahs to the Gold and Spice souks, as well as the Fish and Vegetable markets and, with Howard along, and “To The Top”, a visit to the observation platform of the tallest building in the world, the Burg Khalifa, close to our house!

They also braved our quite chilly pool (27 degrees when they were here in November – as I write this it is a very chilly 24 degrees!)

The photo below is taken at Bab A Shams, our favourite hotel in the desert, with a guaranteed sight of oryx and camel on the way as well as hopefully a gazelle or two, or actually a herd the day we were there this time)

....and this is their trip to At The Top (of the Burj Khalifa - the highest building in the world at 828 metres) . Howard went with them and they went up at 9pm as it was the only time they could get in the short time they were here. Howard reckons a 5pm trip would be the best – daylight, sunset and dark all together. However they had some magnificent views over the city.

The rest of James and Liz’s trip

Here are just a few pictures from the rest of the holiday James and Liz had with us in October. Haste ye back! Highlights shown here are:
a couple of trips on the abrahs across the creek...

the trip to the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi with the Johnsons – fantastic place...

and shopping in the Blue Souk in Sharjah with the Clarkes.