14th Dachstein Alpen-Trophy

The weather forecast almost left no hope... and although Gosau am Dachstein never let us down for twelve years, the sunshine we all had wished for failed to appear.

The model balloonists, nevertheless, knew how to keep themselves busy: On Friday morning, we went for a little wakling-tour around the Lake of Gosau.

Despite the bad weather, we had quite some fun, as you can see from this picture, showing Luc De Wulf from Belgium ;-)

Luckily, the team from the "Kirchenwirt" tavern did all they could to make our wait for better weather as pleasant as possible - thank you ladies :-)

But finally, all the waiting paid! And so, after a short flight on Friday evening, we could put up our balloons on Saturday afternoon - and introduce three new model balloons.

Martin Eutermoser is unpacking his new envelope - what might it be?

While the first new balloon - Jakob Kaiser's envelope - is already standing, mouth to mouth, the new balloons from Martin Kaiser and Martin Eutermoser are inflated...

And here they are, the two Foxes! Martin Kaiser had spend nights over nights to design the special shape at the computer, and finally he and Martin Eutermoser had sewed them together.

...but that was not all, as...

... Bernd Schwab from Laufen had brought along another new special shape, to the surprise of all present!

For over two years (with interruptions), he had worked at the Mouse, but now, finally, the little blue Elephant from the German "Sendung mit der Maus" has got a balloon-sister.

Now, the four balloons could be introduced traditionally with champaign by Heimo Taus from Austria.

But wait, shouldn't there be...? Yes, actually, we wanted to introduce our new balloon as well, but the weather simply made that impossible.

Sounds strange? But it is so ;-)

Right before nightfall, the weather allowed a free flight again, and so, the penguin took liftoff over the village of Gosau.

When Fox and Bunny say goodnight at Gosau, it's time to pack the balloons again...

...or is it not?
Martin Eutermoser with the "Martifant" and Martin Kaiser with the "Gosau Balloon" yet did a little night glow.

Just as the years before, the organizers of the Dachstein Alpen-Trophy were very pleased with the activity of the model balloons, and so, we'll be there in 2008 again - but with better weather, hopefully! ;-)

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