kisdon rainbow

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Saunterings:  Walking in North-West England

Saunterings is a set of reflections based upon walks around the counties of Cumbria, Lancashire and North Yorkshire in North-West England (as defined in the Preamble). Here is a list of all Saunterings so far.
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206.  Up, Up and Away

hot-air balloon The origins of the word ‘saunter’ are obscure. Some think it comes from the French: from s’aventurer (to venture) or from sentier (path) or from sainte terre (referring to pilgrimages to the Holy Land) or from sans terre (referring to nomads wandering about without land). Or perhaps it’s related to the German schlendern, Dutch slenteren, Danish slentre, Swedish släntra, and/or Icelandic slentur, all meaning ‘to stroll’. Or perhaps it’s just a good Old English word. At all events, it has come to mean ‘to wander about idly’, according to my dictionary.

Wandering about idly seems to imply walking. If you were to run then that’s not idling. If you took a mode of transport (car, bus, train and so on) designed to get you from A to B faster than you could walk it then that’s not idling either. There is, however, one mode of transport for wandering about idly: the hot-air balloon. You can’t hurry in a hot-air balloon. You can travel only as fast as the wind allows – and there shouldn’t be much wind at all. You can’t really aim to get anywhere particular either. You can only go where the wind takes you. Can you saunter in a hot-air balloon?  I don't think you can do anything else.

Sixteen of us gathered in the Bull Beck car park. Another thing you cannot dictate with hot-air balloons is where you start. That is a decision for the pilot. The booking listed a number of possibilities: Cartmel, Crook o’Lune, Graythwaite Hall (Newby Bridge), Kirkby Lonsdale, Witherslack or Yealand Conyers. I’d have preferred a Lake District trip myself, soaring over the lakes and mountains, but it is of course hard to guarantee that you’d land safely there, and anyway there was a forecast of rain in that region. So we two walked to the gathering point, which was convenient for us but less so for the other fourteen.

A small trial balloon was released and rose directly up until it disappeared from view, indicating that if we did get aloft we wouldn’t be blown far. We moved on to the fields next to the River Lune but found them recently sprayed with manure. So we were whisked a few miles up the valley, to a field near Melling.

There is more to a balloon trip than just standing in the basket. It is all part of the experience to help with the activities before and after the actual ascent. The basket was placed on its side, with the balloon extracted from its bag and spread out in a long thin line across the field. It was then unwrapped to lay flat on the ground. Two fans blew air into the balloon, which gradually rose. When it was partially aloft gas flames blasted hot air into it and as the balloon continued to rise the basket was pulled upright – and eventually we all clambered in.
balloon 1         balloon 2         balloon 3
The first movements were imperceptible. Only by looking at the grass below could you tell that you were no longer on the ground. I’m not sure how much control the pilot has over all this. It seemed to me that we were travelling slowly horizontally but hardly vertically at all – we barely crested the hedge by the road-side. Anyway, we were soon well aloft, with views across to Ingleborough and below to fields where cows were at first intrigued and then alarmed by us. Understandably, because our periods of serene movement were broken by ferocious roars.
to Lune

Aloft, approaching the Lune

We glided north-westwards, towards the River Lune. As we crossed the river, our pilot performed one of his party tricks (perhaps his only one, as this is a serious business for him) to reassure us that he was in full command of his craft. He called it a ‘splash and dash’. As we crossed the river he dipped the basket in it (like a swallow taking a sip) and then took us swiftly up. Then, from a height of 200 metres or so, we could reflect on the implausibility of our situation – being suspended here below a very large balloon – and admire the view below and in all directions. Because we were travelling with whatever wind there was, there was no sense of movement. Instead the land below was gliding gently along.
splash and dash

Splashing and dashing

Close by we could see the Carnforth-Wennington railway line crossing the Lune. In the past I had been puzzled by the fact that the Lune is squeezed through the second of six not particularly large arches. Just to the east are a further sixteen arches over a large puddle. From the air it is entirely believable that when the viaduct was built in the 1860s the River Lune flowed under those sixteen arches, as well as or perhaps instead of where it is today.
arkholme viaduct

Looking south, with the Arkholme viaduct in the near distance

Also directly below I could trace my footsteps on previous Saunterings – from Kirkby Lonsdale (50) and following the Brontë sisters’ footsteps (151). We could see Thurland Castle, which on the latter walk was hidden from view. The village of Tunstall was laid out below, with the path to what is sometimes a large island, where I had walked amongst huge trees washed down in floods.
tunstall island

Looking north, with the sometime Tunstall island below

Further afield we could see that the Lake District was indeed in rain, as forecast. While the views of Morecambe Bay, the Bowland hills, Ingleborough, Gragareth, and Barbon Fell were clear, they were disappointingly grey because of the cloud.

After wandering idly about for a while we began a descent near Nether Burrow. It seems that the pilot has some control of our direction of travel. There is no steering wheel, of course, but he seems to know where the winds at different levels and in different places blow, sufficient at least for him on this occasion to be able to manoeuvre the craft back east of the river, for the convenience of the land-bound crew. The pilot had in his hand a map marking (with green rings) fields where farmers are happy for the balloon to land, their acquiescence secured by the occasional bottle, and a few fields (with red rings) to avoid. We all took up our landing positions, seated and braced for impact (sometimes the basket bounces and may even tip over). We landed with scarcely a bump.
touchdown

Approaching touch-down, Ingleborough in the distance

Then the process of dismantling the balloon began. A nifty large flap at the top of balloon was removed to enable the hot air to escape. As the balloon subsided, we were allowed to walk inside it, where we were given various statistics about the balloon which I didn’t make a note of. Suffice to say, this is (I think) the largest balloon in the UK. In due course, the balloon became empty and was then rolled up by us all to get it squeezed into a surprisingly small bag.
balloon 4         balloon 5         balloon 6
Overall, a hot-air balloon flight is the proverbial once-in-a-lifetime event. Yes, the novelty is certainly worth experiencing once – but it doesn’t feel necessary to do so twice. Maybe the novelty has worn off recently, now that we can virtually soar over the landscape at will with systems such as Google Earth.

In case it should seem that a balloon flight is a simple soothing experience I will mention that it is not as straightforward as it may seem – it’s not like catching a bus, where you just turn up at a bus-stop. You have to book the flight a couple of months ahead and then wait to see whether and where it happens. This flight was our thirteenth booking. Seven of the previous twelve were cancelled because of the weather – five of those being no surprise to us, as it was clearly too wet and windy, and twice we got as far as standing in a field next to a basket while the pilot did his last-minute calculations and concluded, sorry, that it just wasn’t safe to set off. Four times we had to cancel, for various reasons. And once the queen’s death caused a cancellation. For many busy people all this booking and re-booking (and if they live far from the launching sites all the frustrated travel) would be too much trouble. We accepted it as part of the fun.

Finally, the question must be asked nowadays: how green is a balloon flight? The short answer is: it’s not. An average balloon flight produces about 200kg of carbon dioxide (which responsible flight companies will carbon offset), using enough natural gas to drive a car for more than 1,000 kilometres. At least, for four hours (before, during and after a flight) seventeen people are not driving anywhere.

P.S.  Up, Up and Away is a song written by Jimmy Webb and voted Song of the Year 1968. It begins:
     Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
     We could float among the stars together, you and I ...

We didn't float quite that high.

    Date: July 18th 2024
    Start: SD602718, in a field north of Melling  (Map: OL2)
    Route: roughly N
    Distance: 3 miles as the crow flies (but we didn't fly as the crow);   Ascent: 200 metres

The two following items:
     208.   Trials on Clougha
     207.   Eel Entrainment by United Utilities
The two preceding items:
     205.   Where is Subberthwaite Common?
     204.   In the Dock at Glasson
Two nearby items:
       50.   With the Lune from Kirkby Lonsdale
     196.   From Motte to Motte: Arkholme to Hornby
A list of all items so far:
               Saunterings

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    © John Self, Drakkar Press, 2018-

ullswater

Top photo: Rainbow over Kisdon in Swaledale; Bottom photo: Ullswater