A year has passed since I last put pen to paper for this column.
Time passes and I wonder how I missed its milestones. They flash by amid the cacophony of life and world events.
With the clamour of politics, the chaos of climate change, the ensuing destruction of certainty and lifestyles and the rising costs of actually staying alive and emotionally engaged, I’m not surprised that life seems like an out-of-focus video clip.
It takes the necessary effort to weigh up costs. It’s exhausting at times, to assess the risks. Does one travel or stay sedentary? Pay for petrol or stay home? Risk the road or go crazy with cabin fever? We are still negotiating our way out of lockdown and Covid tidal forces.
On the afternoon of Easter Saturday, I headed south from Dannevirke to Carterton, under questionably overcast grey skies and bleak cold landscapes. My early-bird ticket for the Wairarapa Balloon Festival – Nightglow event at Clareville was firmly filed in my camera bag.
The negotiation of tedious roadworks and smashed bridges was a testing of patience and protocols, but the traffic was reasonably light and well-behaved. I arrived at the Clareville showgrounds after 90 minutes.
Here, the local hi-vis-vested volunteers orchestrated lines of us motorists into rank and file, shoulder-to-shoulder blocks, from whence we walked to admission gates in the head-high perimeter fencing and on, past the portaloos, to the myriad of food trucks, bouncy castles and stalls selling paraphernalia and varieties of tomato-sauced potato chips, hot dogs and Asian takeaway cuisine at, in my view, excruciatingly high prices.
Alas, gone are the days of the $2 pottle of chips and the $4 burger. Now, prices ranged upwards from $5 to $20. Even so, the desperate customers queued. My initial impression was deflating. Under a grey sky, the public looked weary. Expectations were that 10,000 patrons would appear. I had my doubts.
The only balloon was one lying on its side that people could walk into as it was being inflated by massive fans.
The Celtic band The Shenanigans provided Irish-flavoured folk-rock from an open-air stage.
Time passed. One balloon had been inflated and readied to launch when a drone appeared and hovered about three metres from the balloon’s inflated envelope. In spite of numerous public address requests for the drone operator to withdraw, 15 minutes passed before it exited stage left.
Police officers spoke with him. Flying the drone was in breach of aviation law, and the whole evening could have been cancelled if the drone was allowed to operate.
About 5.30pm, and footsore, I headed for my car and Carterton to buy some decent junk food (Subway, fish and chips) before returning to the showgrounds as the night settled in.
The Wairarapa Balloon Festival. Photo / Christopher Cape
The atmosphere was completely different. Hundreds of people were gathered around the central showground, where at least a dozen fully inflated hot air balloons sat suspended, baskets tethered and grounded, breathing incandescent flames from onboard burners. They were colourful. The atmosphere was warm and still.
The crowds were lively, waving glowsticks and cheering. There must have been at least 10,000 in attendance. The display continued for about an hour. Balloon flares were fired, timed alongside a soundtrack which might well have come from a Les Mills high-impact gym routine.
It was loud techno trance, psychedelic material, which seems to be overbearingly common these days. I would have chosen something more gracefully classical for the light show, like Handel’s Water Music or Renaissance material, possibly with a touch of the 1812 Overture thrown in.
But, criticism aside, all’s well that ends well. The event was worth my $24. If you have a bit of extra cash and want a balloon, $20,000 will buy you one second-hand, or you could buy it new with $70,000 to $100,000.
I made my way out of the showgrounds by way of a side entrance in about 10 minutes. I heard that some took two hours to exit. I was home in Dannevirke by 10 o’clock.
