BALOON SAFARIS

Experience a flight of a life time. Loisaba guests can soar high over the largest private wilderness area of the Laikipia Plateau, 105,000 acres. A portion of your ticket cost will be donated to the Loisaba Community Trust to go towards its Education programme.
(Please see more about the trusts activities on www.loisabaccf.org)

• Balloon trips are operated in a state of the art Lindstrad S 180 balloon.
• This is the only balloon in Laikipia, exclusively for Loisaba guests.
• The balloon takes 6 passengers.
• Champagne will be served on landing.
• The average flight duration is 1hr, traveling approx 10 to 15 Kms.
• The balloon is launched from a site 10 mins drive from Loisaba lodge ( usually ).
• Launch time between 6.00 and 6.30am.
• Children: minimum age 8 or a height of 1.2 meters and above.
• Rate: US$425 per adult , US$285 for children under 12.

BALOON PILOT

Michael D McGrath started his flying career in 1979. Since then he has accumulated over 4,000 hours ballooning in over 17 countries including crossing the Swiss Alps, the Pyrenees, the Highlands of Scotland, and assisted in 2 round the world attempts. He moved to Kenya in 1988 to fly balloon safaris over the Masai Mara.

POP, QUEEN OF THE WILDERNESS

There’s new creature in the skies above the Laikipia Plateau, one that’s never been seen there before. It’s scarlet, flies at dawn, and rises and descends at a staggering 900 feet per minute. Otherwise, the pace of its flight is dictated by the speed of the wind, which blows down from the glittering heights of Mount Kenya and out across the painted desert of the Northern Frontier District.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No, it’s the unnervingly named ‘POP’ a state-of-the art, British-made Lindstrand 180 balloon, the latest investment of the exclusive Loisaba Lodge, which stands at the centre of one of the largest privately owned wilderness areas in Africa, the 61,000 acre Loisaba Ranch.

While balloons are a familiar sight, rising into the crisp grey dawn of the Masai Mara, never before have they drifted across the ruggedly beautiful wilderness of Loisaba; causing the resident klipspringers to start in amazement as the burners belch.

Nor have Loisaba’s hundreds of terracotta-red elephants had time to become fully acquainted with the alternately silent and snorting creature that now patrols their skies. There’s much ear-waving as she dips down low of the herd; mothers hushing their offspring into the safety of the matriarchal skirts; the odd lone male shakes his
head in angry disbelief; adolescents career in crazed bravado, then, as the gigantic shadow cast by POP drifts serenely on across the wilderness, everyone gets back to the serious business of tree-munching.

Ballooning is the ultimate safari experience. Largely silent in flight, swift, airy and surprisingly manoeuvrable, the balloon can cover some 10-15 kms during its 1-2 hour flight. During which time, suspended in the suede-lined comfort of the 6-man basket, the passengers may sample the ultimate privilege; of peering into eagles nests, rising over the lodge with a belch of flame, swooping over kopjes, sweeping over lakes, and experiencing the real ‘birds eye view’ of skittering herds of gazelles, scattering zebras, loping giraffes and, if they are lucky, the tragic majesty of a lion or hyena ‘kill’. As for the views, ‘panoramic’ hardly does them justice; this is not just 360 degree: this is complete sense-surround. 

Like most balloons, ‘POP’ rises early, towed to her launch site at around 5am. Then her dedicated team gets to work, headed by professional balloon captain, Mike McGrath, a veteran of more than 25 years flying. First, her scarlet belly is blasted full of hot air, then she slowly rights herself and, at a given signal, the passengers scramble into her basket. Then, with slow and stately grace, the sensuously streamlined bulk of POP rises, voluminously scarlet, into the soft grey dawn… and floats sublimely off into the pink-gold sun rise.

Where she lands is dictated by the vagaries of her master, the wind; but in POP’s wake trails a businesslike cavalcade of safari vehicles, variously transporting her trailer, her crew, and plentiful supplies of chilled French champagne for the obligatory safari breakfast, which ‘happens’ wherever she lands.

POP herself does not partake. Her job done, she is lovingly laid out, smoothed, petted, coaxed and cajoled onto her trailer, and driven away.

Tomorrow is another dawn.