A talented hot air balloon pilot, who spent years soaring over game reserves in his native South Africa, has swapped elephants, giraffes and lions for the wilds of England.

Conrad van Wyk and his red Virgin balloon will become a familiar sight in the skies over Essex, Suffolk and London this summer.

He has just started taking off from Virgin Balloon Flights’ launch sites including those in Colchester, Brentwood, Chelmsford, Braintree and Ipswich.

The 33-year-old, originally from Johannesburg, has flown all over the UK, Europe and Africa and recently spent several years as a chief pilot in Port Elizabeth on South Africa’s east coast.

There, the notoriously windy weather wasn’t the only problem facing the experienced pilot.

“Flying out of a private game reserve, we would watch the ‘big five’ roam freely underneath us,” he said.

“Sometimes in the morning we would be chasing lions off the launch site with the Land Rover before we could launch the balloon, just as the sun came over the mountains.”

Conrad admitted a balloon flight over English counties was different from a South African safari, but he said it was still an airborne adventure.

“I’m not expecting to see any lions or rhinos, but all these locations look great from 1000ft up. So, I’m really enjoying flying here.”

Conrad can take 10 passengers up for around an hour at a time in the basket under his balloon which is called a Lindstrand 210 because it takes a massive 210,000 cubic ft of air to fill it.

He learnt his skilled trade from his father Andre, who flies for Virgin Balloon Flights in Scotland, taking his first flight at just three years old.

But it wasn’t until after he’d done a year’s military service and then suffered a major car accident while working as a courier that he decided he belonged in the air.

“It opened my eyes. I quit my job and started my training about three weeks later. Three weeks after that I had my license in my hand. With just 20 hours on my logbook, I went to the national championships and got a 4th place overall,” he said.

Since then he has flown in Hamburg in Germany, Cambridge and Kent, before returning home to South Africa where, after leaving Port Elizabeth, he set up a balloon manufacturing business and a successful training school in Johannesburg.

To find out more or to book a flight with Conrad visit the website at www.virginballoonflights.co.uk or call 0847 444 2768.