This morning as I ran through the park near my house to be attacked by a fleet of hot air balloons.
It's not unusual for me to see these in the morning, or at least it wasn't pre-pandemic, I would look out the window of my house when I got up and often see them floating past, but then they disappeared - killed (or so I thought) by the lack of tourists during the darkest days of (the still not over by the way) COVID pandemic.
In the last few months I've been seeing one or two maybe one or two days a week but this morning, this morning on a lovely autumn morning in Melbourne there they were seven of them
I can only assume it's tourists hanging around (literally) from the Grand Prix on the weekend, and we are so close to Easter holidays now anyway that you might as well stay for a while, but it was so good to see this many of them.
Now They can't really sneak up on you, It was a pretty still morning so they serenly floated into to picture. The park I'm in it's Royal Park, just north of the CBD of Melbourne (and just over a 1.4km from my house) so one of my morning run routes takes me up to the park, and then around part of the park and then home again. In fact the they are landing right in the middle of the 'Grass Circle' - there is walking/running path around it with a circumference of 1.2 km (so a run to the park, around that a few times and back again it is close enough to 5km.) so they have a pretty big spot to aim for.
Having said all of the that they really did ruin my rhythm today, although I knew when I first saw them I had time for another lap I think felt I needed to stop to capture them all land which is always a slight - particular highlight the two in the first shot that bumped into each other.
But I had a day to get on with and I know what happens next - lots of packing up so of I ran of the circle to avoid them hitting my head as they deflated, past the Children's hospital, the old helipad (they now land on the roof of the hospital) and around the huge kids playground, out of the park, down the hill and back to my real life - which sadly has more sitting in front of computer and less marveling at hot air balloons.
