John Wallington's career and the Canberra Balloon Spectacular will forever be entangled.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It was 1985 when the Spectacular first ran in the capital - albeit with only five or so balloons and a little less of a spectacle than the present-day event. However, it was at that event Wallington met the balloonist who would go on to teach him how to pilot a balloon and give him his first job in the industry.
"I started with the intent on being a commercial balloonist right from the very start," he says.
"I didn't know if I was going to make any money out of it or not, because there weren't many commercial balloonists in those days.
"It's technically challenging, unlike flying an aeroplane it's very sociable - in a balloon, it's terribly sociable because you're in with your passenger - and in addition to those things, every day is a bit of an adventure.
"You never quite know where you're going to land or how the day is going to proceed."
It was this combination of sociability, adventure and challenge that first hooked Wallington on ballooning, and in the years since, he has gone on to have his own business, Balloon Aloft.
It's a job that has seen the balloonist bear witness to many an engagement, as well as a few weddings in the sky, the most memorable of which saw the entire bridal party skydive out of the basket following the I Dos.
His career has also seen him take up the role of flight director for the Balloon Spectacular.
READ MORE:
- Five things to do at Canberra's Enlighten Festival
- Turning on the lights: behind the scenes of the Enlighten Illuminations
- Use your noodle and make the most of the Night Markets
- The man behind Split Enz, Midnight Oil's music videos heads to Enlighten
- Tour the art and furniture collections of Parliament House during Enlighten
"The most important thing for the Spectacular is to make the daily decisions of whether or not it's safe to fly and whether or not we need to change launch sites to provide the best opportunity for a safe flight," he says.
"But the thing that I like about the Balloon Spectacular, apart from the fact that it is a gathering of balloonists who come and have fun ... is the fact that we can provide such a spectacle for the general public.
"It's free, anybody can come along and just enjoy the magnificence of hot air balloons."
Next weekend's Spectacular will see more than 30 balloons take to the skies over Lake Burley Griffin, with few familiar faces in among the flock. Seasoned Spectacular-goers will recognise the purple Nudie balloon, as well as the giant love heart at this year's event.
The key international shape in this year's line-up, however, is a 38.7-metre tyrannosaurus that is larger than Beagle Maximus, which took to the skies in last year's event.
However, as large as the dinosaur is, it may just be outshone by a Canberra local. The Skywhale, designed by Canberra-born artist Patricia Piccinini, is set to make its first flight since being acquired by the National Gallery of Australia on Canberra Day. It will also make a special appearance at the Switch Over event on Friday evening, where it will be inflated but tethered as Enlighten Festival marks the crossover between the Illuminations and the Balloon Spectacular.
Canberra is one of the only a handful of cities in the world that allows hot air balloons to fly over built-up urban areas, and according to EventsACT assistant director of events delivery Jayne Simon, it's the only city that allows the balloons to fly so close to the heart of politics.
"For the pilots, it's actually quite challenging," she says.
"They do need to have at least 50 hours in command of a balloon. That's a pretty high experience level for private balloonists, and that's because flying over the lake and flying over buildings, they need to really be on their game to make sure that when they're coming down, they're going to be landing in a safe and open area.
"They've got this fantastic challenge and I think a lot of them like to do what is called a splash and dash where they skim the top of the lake and they'll call out to the paddle boarders and the Go-Boaters."
Simon has the enviable task - along with the rest of the Balloon Spectacular team - of choosing the international balloon to take to the skies for the event. While this year, of course, will see the giant T-Rex, some of the more unusual balloons which have flown over Canberra in the past include a Vincent Van Gogh's head, a hummingbird and a Smurf balloon.
It's easy to imagine Simon and her team sitting around a big table filled with manila files containing each of the balloons' 'headshot' as if each were an actor auditioning for the starring role. And it's not dissimilar to that.
There is a database the team has access to containing available hot air balloons from around the world.
"Once we know who we can choose from, we look at who's come before because we like to provide the community new shapes each year," Simon says.
"The balloons will come with a specialist pilot. They're more complex to inflate and to fly, they're affected by the winds more so than usual. Australia is really lucky in that we do have some pilots who are capable of flying the special shapes and they are very experienced but balloons of this scale, the pilots are really protective.
"They're really their babies, so we have a pilot called Ernie Lee who will be travelling out with the balloon to operate it."
And the balloonists themselves are an important part of the Spectacular. While other large ballooning events will have them cordoned off in a paddock or field, keeping the crowds away from the action, the Spectacular allows the public to get up close and personal with the crafts.
"From the pilot's perspective, they love the opportunity of speaking to the crowd and we have a few of them that will stay on well after the other balloons have launched because they are talking about how to inflate it, and explaining about it, they let people operate the burners sometimes," Simons says.
"They'll often let people sit in the basket and sometimes tether, where it just lifts off a few metres and then it gently comes down. The pilots love the crowd up close.
"From the attendees' perspective, you can touch the balloon as it's filling with air and you can hear that noise.
"Probably a lot of Canberrans have woken up with the sound of a balloon flying overhead and you can hear the burners, but up close seeing those flames come up when it's still dark, the sun's not quite up yet and it's 6am and everyone is crowding around, it's so special."
The Balloon Spectacular runs from March 7-15, with pilots beginning to inflate their balloons from 6.15am, weather permitting. For flight updates, follow Enlighten Festival on Facebook.