BALLOONING AT DAY'S BAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 135, 5 December 1910, Page 2

BALLOONING AT DAY'S BAY.

The balloon ascent and parachute performance at Day's Bay on Saturday can hardly be written down a success "Sortie 2000 people were over at the Bay, and most of them went to see the balloon go up and the parachutists come down. There was a light southerly breeze blowing in the Harbour, but it was a mera catsnaw in the Bay itself. Inflation ofi the balloon was duly proceeded with, but when it was about to be liberated a gust came through tho trees and wrenched the swaying balloon from the "forty or fifty willing gentlemen," as the parachutist Eastwood described them, who were hanging on to it. At the same uma it burst with a pistol-like report and fell, a heap of rags, in the paddock. Undaunted, Mr. Beebi, the manager, , got another balloon and proceeded to inflate that. By this time the exceedingly good-humoured crowd had begun td weary of waiting. Inflation of the sec ond balloon was retarded because th< tunnel communicating with the furnact and the balloon mouth fell in. Everybody connected with the venture worked among the hot sand and oily soot in order that the remainder of the melting crowd should have something for its money. The boat for town that was to leave at 7 o'clock was already filled and lying at the wharf, with a large proportion of disappointed passengers who had given wp waiting. However, shortly after 7 the balloon rose majestically above the trees for about 100 feefc,_ with the parachutist Eastwood seated in his machine dangling beneath, but it never drifted beyond the paddock in which it Was inflated. Eastwood dropped, and the balloon turned turtle. That was tho end of tho show for the day.