Back in Hamiltown

Now I must admit that although the dating is for the day, this blog is being done in retrospect. Oh I tried to keep it up to date on the road, but the vagiaries of Public Libraries and other internet sources meant that a fair few of my posts disappeared into the ether (I see they have something now called "recover post" - translation: gee I hope I can get it back...). It has given me the opportunity to look back on the events of these past few weeks and find out if my initial feelings about the situation still held. This preamble is basically because the feeling I had back on this day has now been reflected in a bit of a bunfight in the local media.

Tuesday was registration day for Balloons Over Waikato - the premiere international event on the New Zealand ballooning calendar. Denis, as always, was going to be arriving late. he had been told that there was going to be no accomodation available, but one of the entrants had dropped out, so I was going to see if we could use his room when I went down to register as crew. But at the registration tent things seemed very chaotic. Entrants were arriving with no prior details about where they were staying, where to refuel, they were just finding out as they arrived. Those that were travelling later were literally in the dark about where they were headed.

At the Balloonists dinner that evening at the Waikato Stadium (which seemed an odd time to have it anyway, before the event actually began), there were basically a bunch of confused balloonists and it just had the feeling that the wheels were about to fall off. Y'know the sensation when the cart starts veering a bit and you're thinkin' "uh oh, this ain't right". The food was okay, although despite haggling with the organisers, I still wasn't sure if Denis had accomodation when he would finally arrive. So probably like many of the entrants I went to bed a bit concerned. Just what ya need with an early start the next morning.