Ojiya Ballon Festival - not 3rd time lucky

This weekend was the Ojiya Balloon Festival, a major event on the Ojiya calender.  This year was my 3rd attempt to see the balloons in flight, they take part in 3 races that start from Ojiya over the course of the weekend.  Previous years have all been blighted by the weather.

I set my alarm for 6am to be at the start for the first race at 8am.  When I awoke the sky was dull and grey so I decided to give it a miss and wait for the second race scheduled for 1pm in the hope the weather would brighten up. 

On arrival at the start site the clouds started to break revealing blue sky and the sun started to shine, perfect!

The race co-ordinators lot of small helium filled balloons in order to identify the expected direction the race would take and gave the all clear for the balloons to get set up shortly before 2pm.  At 2.20pm this was the first balloon inflated and ready to go.

The local Nippon Bearings team preparing their balloon.

All seemed to be going great until shortly after the picture above was taken.  The first signs of things going wrong can be seen below.

A sudden increase in wind spead made it impossible to inflate the balloons and with that the race was abandoned.

I've written previously about how much I'd love to fly over Yamakoshi and see it from the air.  At the balloon race site yesterday there were 3 Japanese men flying paramotors, I've got to say it looked pretty cool!!