Youth Camp of the Balloon Club of Stuttgart

One gas balloon flight with three hops, a visit to the local swimming pool, five model balloon flights, much rain and even more fun - that's the summary of this year's Whitsun Youth Camp of the Balloon Club of Stuttgart.

For the 33rd time already, 40 big and small balloonists met at the balloon shed at Stuttgart to travel to the camp, which was held at Lützelburg near Augsburg, just like the year before.

Again, the tents were put up on the meadow of Horst Braunwalder, and two hours later, one could see children running around happily, playing ball games and collecting firewood in the forest.

Unfortunately, we couldn't fly balloon that evening, only the model balloons could rise into the air, and even they had to pe packed rather quickly to protect them from a sudden thunder shower. The rain was hard, but brief, so that we could gather around the campfire again after dinner, with guitar, accordion and singing.

As the weather wasn't much better on Sunday, we decided to go to the 'TITANIA' swimming pool, which some of us already knew from the year before. And of course, that was great fun again!

In the afternoon, we could fly our model balloons again at the camp. The weather had calmed down, the ridge of high pressure predicted for monday was on the move.

And while we crawled into our sleeping bags quite early that evening, three members of the balloon club of Augsburg spent the whole night filling three gas balloons for us, which awaited us at four o'clock the next morning.

Together with the sun, we rose into the morning sky and had an unforgettable flight with three hops. Thus, almost every participant had the possibility to fly and enjoy the view from the basket.

Some of the kids needed a footstool to look over the edge of the basket, but that didn't limit our enthusiasm. The journey led us up to the surroundings of Gundremmingen, where we touched down and took a great breakfast in the fields.

In the afternoon, almost everybody took the chance to get some sleep, to be wide awake again in the evening, when the introduction of the children who had taken their first flight was held. The traditional camp song contest also took place that evening.

Contrary to our fears, Tuesday brought no rain, so that we could pack all our equipment almost dry, before we travelled back home.

Our special thanks go to Gesine Francke and Sven Aeckerle for organizing everything, to the Balloon Club of Augsburg for their support, and to the Braunwalder family who had again allowed us to put up the camp on their meadow.