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Hanne recieved a present of a voucher for a hot air balloon ride for two. We tried to use it last year on holiday in the West Country but the weather was not suitable so we transferred to Warwickshire. The weather has to be just right (calm with low wind speed, in the right direction, high enough cloud base) and each time we booked a date we had to phone the night before to see if the forecast was good for the following day. At our third attempt the message was that the flight was on and would start ...

We headed away from Stratford and a second balloon which took off at the same time climbed a little higher so was carried away from us due to the different wind direction at different heights. We later climbed above it to change direction.



We eventually climbed to over 1,000 feet so had a good view over the surrounding countryside without things being too small. Here's Bidford on the ...

October 14th and 15th saw the inaugural WildlifeXpo at the Alexandra Palace which I attended on the last day. It does not seem to have been widely advertised, and I only heard about it from Biosphere Expeditions who were one of the exhibitors and is the organisation I volunteer with in Namibia. Entrance was ten pounds which included a donation to the Wildlife Trusts.

The format was several series of lectures running in parallel as well as a main exhibition hall. The lectures covered ...

Earlier this year I mentioned I was planning another visit to Namibia in 2011 as a volunteer on a scientific study on a game farm near Windhoek with Biosphere Expeditions and gave some details of the preparations.

The trip to Windhoek was Birmingham -> Frankfurt -> Johannesburg -> Windhoek booked through Lufthansa and flying in the A380 airbus on the middle leg. Nothing special to be said about the A380, it's a big aircraft so boarding is long-winded and it is no more or ...

My camera technique with low flying aircraft being a bit rusty, Hanne and I decided to go watch the second day of the 2011 Duxford Flying Legends display. It's dual carriageway all the way, so an easy drive of about 2 hours. We stopped in the Cambridge Par and Ride and took the shuttle bus to the airfield arriving about 2 hours before the start. It was already fairly busy so we went and set up our chairs at the western end of the runway.

We had driven over in sunshine but dark cloud ...