Balloon Race Winners

By M Watt on 23/11/2004

The 2004 balloon race saw balloons arrive as far away as the Midlands of England, hundreds of miles from the school. Three were returned, providing unexpected surprises for three lucky people.

The balloons flew far and wide, much further than they did in 2002. Though that year we were nearly fooled when one turned up in the post from Sydney, Australia!! It turned out that our Australian exchange teacher, Sally Bray, had found one close to the school and decided it would be fun to play a trick on us. She sent it to her niece in Sydney. But we are not smart geographers for nothing... we had already worked out the prevailing wind direction, and the wind speeds that day wouldn't have carried anything very far in Scotland, far less anywhere beyond its shores. So we tackled her on this strange postal package.... and, yes we disqualified that balloon and gave the prizes to the ones returned from Forfar and Brechin instead. They didn't travel far that year.

This time the 2004 balloons flew south over Edinburgh in a much stronger wind. The weather forecast that day checked out for this direction! The first to be returned landed on Leith Links in Edinburgh, securing a prize for Katherine Adamson, 5P9. The others must have continued their journey over the border into England, across the Pennines and into Lancashire where S4 pupil, Natalie Redford's balloon landed near Preston, on open moorland at a height of 236m above sea level. But the one that saw the most and ventured furthest nearly got to Alten Towers in Staffordshire. Mrs D Moir of Learning Support had bought that one though Mrs Rae had sent it off. Amazingly it took only three days for the return journey. What adventures they must have had....but what became of the other 160+ balloons sent off that day?


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