Balloons often crop up in unexpected places during October. There is an informal competition called "The Great British Long Jump" (GBLJ) fot the longest flight to be made in the British Isles within the month of October.
As you can imagine trying to get a 200+ mile balloon flight in the UK without entering controlled airspace is pretty challenging (minimal ability to steer around it) so folk are willing to go to a lot more trouble than they would bother with than for a 1 hr "pop & drop". 250 miles, & 8 hours duration are not exceptional. I believe that nowadays most serious entrants carry transponders.