Youth Camp of the Balloon Club of Stuttgart

This year, the youth department of the Balloon Club of Stuttgart held their Whitsun Youth Camp in Lützelburg near Augsburg, where the 40 participants had put up their tents on a meadow.

After our arrival on thursday, we put up the tents, and then went for some ball games. The wonderful weather yet brought the first sunburn of the year for some of us ;-)

In the evening, we were able to fly with two hot air balloons, one of the club, the other one of the German Balloon Youth. With three stops, we could get twelve kids into the air altogether.

On Friday morning, the weather was fine at first, but later on, it began to rain. Luckily, the evening before on our balloon flight, we had spotted a swimming pool, which we could use as an alternative program in the afternoon.

Left: The replica of an old sailing ship decorates the glass facade of the swimming pool building.

The funnel slide (on the right) is one of the outstanding attractions of the 'TITANIA' in Augsburg-Neusäß. If you're ever in the area of Augsburg and looking for a fun swimming pool, the 'TITANIA' is definitely the place to be :-)

In the evening, the traditional camp song contest, where kids and adults demonstrated their singing abilities, was great fun for everyone.

For Saturday, the forecast had announced better weather - until that really happened, we spent the time with event education games and with our model balloons.

In the evening, we could launch two hot air balloons again, and with two stops, almost all of the camp participants could take at least one flight altogether.

At the campfire, we spent the rest of the evening. Later on, as we put up some new wood, we frightenedly recognized hoarfrost on it. This led a great part of us adults to prevent eventual frostbite by consuming some of Wolfgang's "camomile tea"... which strangely tasted like Grappa, though ;-)

The breakfast on sunday was scheduled for half past eight, however, some of us crawled out of the tents not before nine - if it was the coldness of the night or the "camomile tea", we'll never know.

After all tents had been packed away and everything had been cleaned up, the kids who had taken their first flight in the camp were introduced to the aristocracy of ballooning.

Finally, we made our way back to Stuttgart.

We wish to thank Gesine Francke and Sven Aeckerle for organizing everything, as well as Wolfgang Hirsch who, apart from the Aeckerles, was responsible for the food and drink (not only with camomile tea), and Horst Braunwalder, who had provided his meadow as our camping site.