Russian traveler Fedor Konyukhov on the round-the-globe solo balloon voyage on Saturday (July 23) reached the meridian of west Australia’s Northam (116°39’58″E), from where he began the journey eleven days earlier.
Thus, Fedor Konyukhov has set a speed record of a round-the-globe balloon voyage.
Right now, the pilot prepares for landing. He crosses the so-called “grain belt” – the agricultural area of several hundred kilometers, which crosses the country from the western shore. In that densely populated area live more than 3% of Australia’s population. It is dangerous to land there, thus the balloon continues floating towards the desert.
“For the landing, we are picking some deserted area far from electricity lines,” the traveler’s son Oskar told TASS on the phone. “He has crossed Northam – it is a wonder, which is difficult to believe.”
Konyukhov, an artist by profession, who was ordained as a Russian Orthodox priest in December 2010, has a great many spectacular exploits to his credit. The list includes two ascents to Mount Everest and ascents to the highest peaks of all other continents, a voyage across the Atlantic in a single-row boat for 46 days, the crossing of an 800-km distance in Greenland within 16 days, several solo circumnavigation tours, a single-handed non-stop tour around Antarctica, and a solo rowing voyage across the Pacific in 159 days.
Source: TASS
