Canberra from above, where the grid gives way to the hills.

I didn't expect it to feel this quiet.

We launched just as the sky was shifting, that particular shade of pre-dawn grey giving way to something warmer, almost hesitant. The burner roared in short bursts, and then there was nothing but the wind and the slow, unhurried lift.

Canberra from above is a different city. The geometry of it, the avenues, the roundabouts, the deliberate symmetry around the lake, makes sense in a way it never quite does from the ground. Parliament House sat small and still below us. The Brindabellas held the horizon, catching the pink before the rest of the sky was ready for it.

I kept waiting to feel the height. The fear, the vertigo, something. It never came. Instead there was just this, a strange, suspended calm. Like being inside a photograph before anyone takes it.

The lake went gold the moment the sun cleared the hills. A few cars moved on the bridges below, tiny and unhurried. The city was waking up without us, and we were fine with that.

I thought about how rarely I'm anywhere that asks nothing of me. No noise to fill, no pace to keep. Just cold air and long light and the slow turn of the balloon finding its own way.

I want to remember it exactly like this: still, a little cold, and entirely present.