Tiki Tour 2012 - Homeward bound

Sonny Jim and me at Lake Tekapo, dreaming of hot-air ballooning?

Well, as you can probably guess, we have still not managed to get airborne over Canterbury! The recorded message at 4 am today was the same as on the 9th Jan - ". . . not happening today, due to unsuitable flying conditions". On the positive side, of course we would rather be "safe than sorry" and I'd far rather stay on the ground if the conditions are anything less than perfect, especially after that tragic hot-air ballooning accident up north earlier this month. Another positive is that we have a few more weeks of anticipation, wondering what it feels like to be floating noiselessly along above the patchwork landscape laid out below like a giant quilt. We have booked for our third attempt at ballooning over Waitangi weekend in early February.

So after a couple of hours of Wifie and I trying to get back to sleep and failing dismally, we made the most of our early start, and bundled a very drowsy Sonny Jim into the car at 6.45 am, still in his pyjamas and sleeping bag! We made excellent time heading north, only needed one toilet/refreshment stop and were back home again by just gone mid-day.  We'll definitely try the early morning thing another time when we are heading up or down the country as once we had shaken off the last vestiges of sleep it was a great time to travel.

Tiki Tour to be continued eventually. . .