Peter Amyes enjoys ballooning, even though he is not yet ready to take up the sport himself.
He is responsible for bringing hot air balloons to Oamaru for the Victorian Heritage Celebrations.
The balloons add real colour and excitement to the celebrations.
And the visiting balloonists really enjoy coming to Oamaru during the celebrations, and take an active role by dressing in Victorian clothes and going to some of the events, such as last night's ''First Class Passengers' Ball'' and tonight's ''Wheeltappers and Shunters' Shindig''.
In 2011, when Mr Amyes was chairman of the celebrations committee, a revamp was carried out to freshen the event.
Part of that was setting themes in place.
This year's focus is on transport.
''We were also looking for something different, and I thought hot air balloons would be neat to get hold of,'' he said.
That part was easy - finding balloonists and convincing them to bring all their equipment on Oamaru was a tougher step.
He first contacted commercial balloonists, because they were easy to find.
They put him on to sport balloonists, because they thought that group would be more interested.
Mr Amyes contacted a group in the North Island and last year, for the first time, four balloonists came south.
This year, six balloonists were planning to fly from Oamaru, but one had to pull out at the last minute.
''I thought six, at least for a start, was a good number.
''We didn't want it to become a balloon festival,'' Mr Amyes said.
