Balloon bid foiled

A DISAPPOINTED balloonist and six helpers were licking their wounds in an Ohakune caf? at 10 o'clock yesterday morning.
They would have preferred to be in Waiouru, celebrating a successful flight.
Rick Walczak, an experienced adventure flyer from Carterton, had made exhaustive preparations for a balloon flight over Mount Ruapehu. It was to have happened yesterday morning.
He and his team first set up near National Park airstrip, ready for the predicted westerly wind to carry them across the North Island's highest point and land them near the Waiouru airstrip and SH1.
Then the wind shifted to southerly, and the team of eight repositioned the balloon on the south side of the mountain, hoping to traverse not only Ruapehu but Ngauruhoe and Tongariro using the air current.
Then, within about 15 minutes, the wind changed to northerly. The team packed up and moved to another site, but by that time it was too late to take advantage of calmer morning conditions and they had to abandon the whole attempt.
"We set up in three different locations. It was really frustrating," Mr Walczak said.
However he had learned some good take-off positions to use in a second attempt next Wednesday, when the weather was predicted to be more stable.
On that day he planned to take off from National Park at 6.30am and land near Waiouru before 10am.
Mr Walczak was returning to the Wairarapa in the meantime. He said a balloon flight over a mountain required a huge amount of preparation by a lot of people, and he was pretty disappointed it hadn't happened.
"But that's the mountain and this is ballooning, and that's why not everybody does it."