30th of June: flight from Schefferville to
Sorel/Montreal
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| The routing of our Trans-Atlantic tour |
Being up early to check the weather I found that winds were
reasonably light but in the wrong direction. There was no way I could risk a
flight without the help of Gilles support and vehicles. So that was that.
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| the abandoned seaplane |
Going for a jog instead then allowed me to discover an
abandoned seaplane by a lake to which I later returned driven by another
friendly local guy called David. I managed to communicate with him in my rusty
French and learned that the pilot of the aircraft died a few months ago of a
brain hemorrhage.
All aeroplanes refuelled and ready we had to say good-bye to
Mark and Rocky as they were heading towards the US.
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| flying over rivers and mountains towards Montreal |
Our flight this time took us 540miles heading South towards
Montreal covering initially vast areas of more forest and lakes and rivers
before the scenery turned to civilization and we spotted more roads, cars,
houses, power lines, fields and churches!
Our outback adventures comes to an end. I felt partly sad
but also relieved to have made it through some of the toughest terrains on this
planet without any harm and I was ever so grateful to our sturdy Betty and to
John for his fantastic flying skills. So now I only needed to get Canada in my
balloon logbook.
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| bye bye empty countryside! |
And the weather didn’t look promising at all with low cloud,
some drizzle and heavy showers en route…
At 2pm we touched down at the little friendly airstrip of
Sorel, near St Lawrence Bay. A guy named Louis very kindly drove me to town
immediately after landing as we were desperate to finally get hold of some
local Canadian currency! We had been more than 3 days now in this country
without a bank and a penny of cash on us.
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| waiting fort things to happen at the airfield cafe bar |
Whilst I was down town Phil was desperately trying to sort
out hangarage for our aeroplane. So far with no success as every hint turned
out to be either too expensive, or too far off route or didn’t have a hangar or
too short a runway.
As I returned to the strip at 4pm with Louis I noticed the
wind sock just hanging down like a ripe banana from a tree! Let’s go and try to
fly NOW!! The weather looked somewhat dodgy but it might just hold and there
were no thunderstorms forecast – only the potential rain cloud.
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| Tim ready for his flight in the tiny folding basket |
Surprising Tim with the offer to jump into my basket we both
took off from the airfield at 4.45pm and
flew right over Betty! Sooo good to be in the air in a balloon again! Winds were
light and heading into just the right direction towards a small country road.
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| flying over Betty with another aircraft taxing below us |
As I didn’t want to push my luck, I took the first available field that wasn’t
crop (and there was a lot of that!) and called it a day! With sweat on our
bodies (yes it was extremely humid and a wonderful 24 degrees!!) we packed the
kit quickly away and brought it back to the aeroplane.
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| final landing on a field track |
Country no 85 firmly in my book it was time to celebrate a
hugely successful journey with 3 balloon flights, stunning aeroplane flying and
a great team overall!
After a long wait for transport the friendly airport café personnel
drove us to our little Motel in Sorel and we spend a very pleasant evening at
the restaurant ‘San Marino’.
It was great to see darkness again by 10pm and I
slept extremely well.
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