© NZPocketGuide.com
© NZPocketGuide.com

Kite Landboarding with Wind Warrior – Day 65

© NZPocketGuide.com

Day 65 on the Road

Kite Landboarding on Foxton Beach

Today on New Zealand’s Biggest Gap Year, we are trying out Kite Landboarding with Wind Warrior!

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There is something I really want to do but it’s extremely weather dependent. We need a windy day but a beautiful day I want to do some kite landboarding which is something I’ve never done I don’t think Robin’s ever done, this is a whole new sort of extreme sports in new zealand we’re trying out so I’m really excited to do this.

last night robin got a phone call maybe around 8 o’clock saying Ok the weather report has just changed low tide is going to be around 10am in the morning the weather looks like it’s going to be nice and sunny there’s a north-westerly wind of 13 knots which is ideal for some kite sports. If we’re going to do this really weather dependent sport then at 10am with the Wind Warrior company that is when we have to do this. I am so pumped I am ecstatic right now just can’t wait to get started and fly through the air above the beach. We do a little bit of a school session over there he sat us down and explained us how everything works and you know, he had a little diagram of how the wind is working with the wind. he shows us the kite that we’re going to be kiting. once the theory is done we are going to the beach. That’s not me making those noises.

I don’t think i’ve seen a dog that excited in my life. And Snoop Dogg. oh yeah because this dog the staffordshire bull terrier is called Snoop Dogg because he is fly. He is for shizzle ma nizzle. He’s gradually making more and more noise he is trying to contain his excitement but it is not working for him. So we arrive at the perfect spot Glen picked for us to teach us kite surfing just before we head off all along the beach we hop off the truck and Glen is getting one kite out. It’s going to be one kite for the two of us for the lesson so we can watch each other and learn from each other’s mistakes so the first thing that we’re going to be doing is trying just to play around a little bit with the kite and get a feeling on how do we get traction with the kite. We are just flying the kite and all of a sudden we can just feel how like oh my God this kite is so powerful and the way to get more power is just to do a figure of eight just like woosh and then you know when it goes back that’s when it’s going to get the most power and yeah, it’s just really like amazing these kites. This is like extreme kite flying and damn I wish this was the kite I had when I was a kid, not my shitty little Barbie one that just fell into electric fences all the time. This is the kite I want. Practice a little bit. There is actually a bit more traction than what I thought there would be so it’s quite interesting to feel that. It’s very easy to maneuver and yeah, it’s pulling me a little bit off my feet a few times so I’m moving forward and yeah, it’s actually pretty cool. Even the smallest motion on your wrist to a figure of eight or whatever that has so much movement on the kite so really all the control is up to you you just have to learn to master the wind. So once we practice this, Glen is putting us on the kite [landboard] and we just have to do a little bit of a semi circle to basically get in motion and then turn and then stop. When we face the sea we stop. So it’s not a rule it’s just what the wind happens to be today. So we are getting a bit of a feel with it. Both of us kind of trip a couple of times. It’s a lot of things to manage to make it work but it’s really cool to you know just this feeling of like basically paddling in the air and mastering the forces of the wind it’s hard to describe how cool that is. Like any board sports you need to know how to first control your speed and secondly you need to know how to stop just in case your shitting yourself or just in case you’re about to crash into something or someone it’s good to know how to stop. First couple of attempts from myself, it feels like I’m learning to walk again, I feel so clumsy, I’m falling over straight away it’s just like a completely odd feeling I’m just falling over all the time you know that’s not a good look I’m a bit ashamed to be honest but what can you do? It’s quite funny I’m just falling over every two seconds. Steadily I get a hang of it let’s just go let’s just go for it get some speed and go kite landboarding. She actually starts catching quite a lot of speed she’s maneuvering her way to get a little bit of speed so that she can stop at t a comfortable position and get a little bit of traction. Aside from he bum sticking out so much, she seems like a professional, it looks pretty cool. Glen which is a real professional is praising Laura’s skills quite a lot. Admittedly in the first two minutes I do fall over but I fall over gracefully, you know, I see things are going wrong I just think oh I’m just going to slide on my ass. I’m back on the board and I’m just cruising for ages and even getting the confidence to pick up a little bit more speed give myself a little bit more power and just cruise along. yeah, it’s really awesome feeling. It’s so different from other board sports because obviously you got to concentrate on what your kite is doing, concentrate on what your hands are doing but also your controlling the direction your going with your feet obviously on the board. yeah, there’s so much to sort of think about but then once you have mastered one section you can let you mind go and concentrate more on something else and yeah, it’s a really cool sport. After also Robin masters his landboarding skills he’s a bit better than me he picks it up pretty quickly. Glen straps a safety wrist band onto me and gets me to got a hold of the kite and he’s kind of teaching me a little bit how that would work so I’m going left then right and going a bit of a figure of eight right here to see how things work and where is the power. I’m starting to manage properly I kind of have to do a bit more motion than Laura has to do because I need to get some traction going on right here. that’s a bit more challenging because I’m literally dancing on that board you know constantly instead of kind of stopping and a smooth motion and keep going with that so I constantly kind of have to being in motion which starts working pretty well so I start getting some speed I start getting a little bit more confident and then the driftwood happens. We arrive in a section of the beach which has a lot of driftwood and I have to both manage the kite stay on my feet and also avoid a bit the driftwood by maneuvering it a bit like a skateboard so that starts to become a little challenge. My falling over doesn’t seem so bad when we’re just cruising along behind Robin and all of a sudden he falls over in the most dramatic way. I’m getting closer with the camera and he just stacks it. I don’t know what happens why he does that? But it’s a good feeling to know like ah yes I’m not that shit.

Flying a kite like that and getting it to tract you make you see the invisible force of the wind and it’s really cool I kind of slowly falling in love with that sport [kite landboarding] right here. This is really some that I wish I could be doing every day. Out of the whole length of the day we travel for about 10km you know it’s quite a lot for a beginner landboarder so yeah, it’s really fun. We’re heading back to Palmerston North where we’re going to spend another night into the beautiful Railway Hotel Backpackers before tomorrow exploring Palmerston North in-depth we have a really full-on program tomorrow you will know everything you need to know about Palmerston North.

I’m looking for some mean time have you seen any?

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