Hot Air Balloon Rides near Perth, in the Avon Valley
Three dawn flights from the hangar at Northam, over the Avon River, wheat country and granite outcrops. From 243 EUR, one listing includes the drive from Perth.
The Avon Valley is an hour east of Perth, over the Darling Scarp, and it is where Western Australia does its ballooning. The morning starts in the dark at the hangar in Northam, and the crew runs you out to a launch site chosen on the day — the valley is wide and the wind decides which part of it you see. Below are the Avon River, the farmland it waters, and granite outcrops standing out of the wheat country.
Three flights are listed. They are the same balloon with different logistics: one includes the drive from Perth, which is the whole argument for it, since the alternative is a two-hour round trip behind the wheel before sunrise. Champagne breakfast afterwards is standard on all three.
Avon Valley Balloon Flight with Breakfast and Perth Pickup
The Avon Valley flight with the drive from Perth included: no early start behind the wheel, and no working out how to get back afterwards.
Avon Valley Sunrise Balloon Flight with Champagne Breakfast
The morning starts in the dark at the Northam hangar, where an envelope on the ground turns out far bigger than it looks in the air. Champagne breakfast.
Perth Avon Valley Balloon Flight at Dawn with Breakfast
A basket gives none of the vertigo a ladder does: nothing connects you visually to the ground. Dawn over the Avon Valley farmland, east of Perth.
Ratings collected by Viator and Tripadvisor
When to fly over the Avon Valley
Western Australia has a Mediterranean climate turned upside down: wet winters, dry summers, and a ballooning season that runs from March to November — the longest in the country.
The flights leave from the Avon Valley around Northam, an hour inland from Perth, where the winter mornings are cold and still and the wildflowers carpet the ground from August. High summer is the closed part of the year here: December to February the valley is hot and the schedule stops.
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The same reading for all 31 destinations, grouped by climate, is on the season guide.
The valley from above, and the wildflowers
The Avon Valley is wheat and sheep country, and from the air it reads as long shallow folds of cleared farmland with the Avon River threading through the middle and granite outcrops — the locals call them rocks, and some are the size of a village — breaking the surface at intervals. Which part of the valley you see is settled on the morning: it is wide, and the crew picks a launch site to match the wind rather than the other way round.
From August the ground does something that no other destination on this site does. Western Australia's wildflower season turns the uncleared strips and roadside verges into continuous colour, and the valley below the basket carries it in patches through September and into October. It is a genuine reason to prefer those months, and it lines up with the most reliable flying weather of the year.
The drive from Perth, and why it is the whole question
Three flights are listed and they are the same balloon with different logistics. The morning starts in the dark at the hangar in Northam, where the crew runs passengers out to the launch site; the flight is about an hour, and a champagne breakfast on landing is standard rather than an extra.
The difference that matters is the transfer. One listing includes the drive from Perth, and that is its entire argument: the alternative is a two-hour round trip behind the wheel with a start well before dawn at one end and the come-down after a flight at the other. If you are staying in Perth rather than in the valley, the version with the coach is not an upsell — it is the sensible booking.