Complete silence with farmland, mountains and a whole lot of gorgeous yellow tinged sunlight thrown in for good measure. Ballooning is awesome!
Apart from the gentle breeze and an occasional forlorn cry from a farm animal 2000 feet below, there wasn’t a sound to be heard.
The sun rose as we soared listlessly across the sky at the complete the mercy of the elements, our balloon casting long shadows across the land. The 5D MK II lapped it all up with the 15mm Fisheye, the 14mm Rectlinear and the much loved Sigma 50mm.
The best shot of the balloon ride was definitely when the pilot dropped the basket so close to the Cane fields that the flowers were hitting the top of the basket as we skimmed across the top of them. It looked like some impossible crane shot and you simply couldn’t have got it any other way. Fantastic stuff! 
After that, everything went down hill, it was the hardest, longest, most physically demanding and mentally exhausting day of the trip yet. An incredibly difficult, yet fitting way to see it out.
I spent the rest of the morning running around Sonaisali Island Resort getting interviews, while Brett took advantage of the clear skies and went to grab the rest of the shots we needed from Denarau Island.
There was also a day spa, rooms, a cocktail party and firewalking to shoot and not a second to stop and breathe until we wrapped for the final time at 7pm. That was the nail in the coffin for me. 16 hours of absolute gnarliness and I was cactus! Rendered mute with exhaustion until I’d managed to get down a couple of celebratory ales with the crew to salute a job well done.
So we were to bed by midnight and back up at 4:30am this morning for the final journey to the airport, where we jumped on our plane back to Brisbane and the comforts of home.
As I write this from my office back on the Sunshine Coast, reflecting on the journey, the good times, the bad, and everything in between, I can definitely say it was worth it and a good time.
We all tried some different things on this trip and took a lot away from it. A job that forces you to grow and learn through experimentation and being put in challenging situations is a great test and it’s always rewarding to see it out and make it work.
So that’s about it for the Fiji thing. . .Back to normal, day in, day out life on the Sunshine Coast. Not that it’s a bad thing, now I can spend all my time checking the letterbox to see if the 7D has arrived yet. . .Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, here I come!
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