It\u2019s no wonder that a parrot with a wooden leg has difficulties with making elegant landings and sure enough Pegleg Pete made an inelegant landing on Gungahlin Drive Expressway on Monday Morning, Canberra Day.<\/p>\n
Pegleg Pete, the half-pirate\/half pirate\u2019s parrot hot air balloon from Champaign, Illinois, is perhaps the most popular of the balloons in town for the Canberra Balloon Spectacular.<\/p>\n
Shannon Bevan and partner Damon Reardon were at the Spectacular\u2019s launch site before dawn on Monday and made a special point, Brown recalled on Tuesday, of watching the fabulous Pete being inflated and then lifting off into the dawn light.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018But after watching Pegleg Pete\u2019s inflation and departure from the Spectacular on Monday, Damon and I were driving home towards Belconnen on the GDE at about a quarter past eight.\u00a0 We were forced to stop suddenly as Pegleg Pete decided to land!\u2019\u2019 Brown said.<\/p>\n
It was as if Pete had been quietly following them. The last they\u2019d seen of him after his lift off, he\u2019d been gliding gently over the National Library of Australia.<\/p>\n
They didn\u2019t see him again while they were driving home until they rounded a bend of the GDE and there he was, as we can see in the pictures taken by the startled couple, inelegantly blocking the highway.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Damon quickly pulled the car over and ran over to help the balloon team as the basket [with three people in it] was struggling to be lifted over the railing. Once the basket was safely on the road he assisted the balloon team in moving Pegleg Pete to a safe (and large enough) space on the GDE to deflate him and pack him away.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n