A convoy of 32 hot air balloons carrying 150 passengers traveled from Greta over the Hunter Valley to Maitland Airport on Sunday morning as part of the region's annual Balloon Fiesta.
Around 500 passengers were launched into the sky at sunrise on commercial and privately piloted balloons over the four days of the festival, which ends on Monday.
Matthew Scaife director and senior pilot of Balloon Aloft, the flying company that hosts the event, said Sunday's conditions were "ideal".
"We went right up to 5000 feet this morning and had great speed," he said.
Mr Scaife said around 50 carloads of spectators had registered to watch the balloons' journeys from the ground.
Valentine's David Diehm, who has come to the festival four times to spectate, took his first trip in a balloon on Sunday.
"It was an incredible feeling being up there. The views back to Newcastle and Nelson Bay were spectacular," he said.
Amateur photographer Lisa Moore, of East Maitland, said she was hoping to capture some memorable images of the fiesta while following the balloons by car on Sunday.
"It's an incredible experience seeing so many balloons take off at once," Ms Moore said.
"Last year I got a really good picture of a balloons in the sky at sunrise with a kangaroo jumping through the fields," she said.
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