Hot Air Ballooning

My long awaited balloon adventure. Finally happened after waiting 10yrs & two cancellations for previous attempts. highly recommended I look forward to other opportunities to do it again. Thankyou to my beautiful husband for such a wonderful birthday present xx

Champagne at the end of our Balloon flight, balloon rolled away & basket loaded. Thanks John & Melissa for a memorable experience.






Landed safely we await the ground crew.

Up Up & Away

Some Flame to take us higher

Inside the balloon the steering explained.

Early morning over the Hunter Valley

Sunrise 22/12/11

From Hot Air Balloon

Some vineyards green for the abundance of rain, could make for a lovely wine, keep your taste buds ready.

Ready for take-off

Balloon inflated, hop in the basket

Setting up the tracking software

A bit of heat to inflate the balloon

Holding the envelope open to let the fans fill up the balloon.

Balloon unrolled waiting to be filled

Basket for the balloon ride

Meeting at Crowne Plaza Cessnock ready for Balloon ride

More Australians now investing in solar systems

More Australians now investing in solar systems but this will now decrease severely in 2011.

Putting solar electricity feed in tariff solution on the roof is no longer sustainable as the feed in tariff which was $0.60 (probably not sustainable) has now dropped to $0.20 from October 2010 for new applicants.

Selling power @ $0.20 and buying back @$0.40 in peak or even more if paying for green does not make any economic sense.

So no solar system for my roof, and I am disappointed because many thousands of employees in this industry will now face economic disruption.

Do we really need to think on this one - putting solar on the roof is a long term economic way to reduce CO2 but not any more in NSW, Australia, thanks to some short term thinking of our elected officials.