IMPORTANT!!! This is a DIFFERENT poll to the one i put up a week ago. The poll last week was about NZ as a place to LIVE. This one is about NZ as a place to VISIT.

BOTH ARE TAKEN ENTIRELY FROM A KITESURFING POINT OF VIEW... NOTHING ELSE!!

I have allready placed my vote

when are you going to do something worthwhile with your life :?:

Stop encouraging him, it just goes on and on.

Is this the same guy on :

www.nzkiteboarding.com/

with a 44 page journal / kiterblog on what he does every session?

Why does he feel he needs to tell everyone everthing that goes on in his head.
Very interesting, but scary!!

this takes the all time prize in several categories, sent in by alert reader gary bentsword of milford sound:




Whats up tripper... take a read of another trippers ramblings!

laugh my arse off!! [i firetrucked myself - and as far as i know i still haven't laid eyes on this crazy cat - sss]

gonna head to Rags for day on Sat... you in? [yes - i'm in like sin for the weekend - sss]

i don't know who's wierder - gazza for finding this stuff or thrasher for concieving it but here goes, straight from the beast's orifice:

28/11/05: Shakers sesh. Pumpin wind, especially at the start where i was
fully lit on my hydro. Boostin big jumps and really quite glad to be back in
the clean chop of shakers as opposed to the genuine surf i've been in as of
recent. much more at home here. Anyway there was a few of us out but really
a relaxed scene with all of us being intermediates... no Gavin Broadbents or
Shane Brights to worry about, believe me when the pros are around they take
up the entire bay!! Gavin broadbent when he was at PH a few years back did
the same thing.. it's less "crowded" when there are 10 of us locals at the
same spot!!! Anyway it did back off somewhat and i swapped to freestyle
mode... let my hair down a bit today... far less cautious than in the
waves!!

27/11/05: Muriwai sesh with Tim,Hamish and Hamish's mate Gavin. No where
near as insane as yesterday but west coast is west coast and to be
rerspoected at all times. Being crossonshore didn't help either. Unlike most
people my favourite conditions are onshore as i don't venture out far in
surf so crossshore doesn't help me one bit. My waveriding skills are pretty
short but that's because it's my third time in proper waves for a while.
Think my number of wave sessions can be counted on both my hands since i
started way back in 2001. All but two of those have been at Orewa in small
surf. Wind was strong and steady.. about 20 knots, maybe 25 and it was a
crystal clear day out west... cloudy and rainy out east though. Tim was
right at home in the waves and Hamish wasn't too shabby either. His friend
Gavin ended up quite a way downwind. Gavin who is just starting out is a
newcomer to the East auckland crew and has been at Pine Harbour a few times.

26/11/05b: After my EB session i went to Cornwallis to get an idea what it's
like in these conditions.... brilliant, infact incredable, top notch,
exactly what i expected. But i didn'tgo there to kite... just to look...
unlessof course there were other kiters there... but there wasn't. Anyway
onto Orewa where i was maybe planning to kite. On arrivial it looked pretty
tame... but looks are decieving. my hydro and 20m lines had me superlit and
the surf was a handful.. much bigger than what i expected and crosshore
winds too so you had to head out a bit to keep your ground.... and that was
no easy task and not without it's danger. i really got taught a lesson today
in how to handle gnarly conditions... conditions i don't kite in often and i
allmost got wasted many times... i lost my board in the waves and got hit by
the surf and believe me when people talk about the dangers of getting hit by
waves when holding a fully powered kite... they ain't lyin!!!! I narrowly
missed getting my kite tangled with that of NZ legend Gavin Broadbent. not
only could that have seriously injured both of us but the social fallout
from that could have been interesting as i am NOT very popular up there and
Gavin is practically worshipped. After seeing him today that comes as no
surprise as the guy is a bloody legend. Seeing him pull off these insane
moves with the greatest of ease in conditions far from easy just makes me
realise how far i've got to go before i can foot it with these guys. i don't
think i'm gonna be as outspoken on the kiteforums from now on. Infact i
probably won't be posting on them again. i think God taught me a lesson in
humility. At the end of my session i kept as far upwind as possible to avoid
these guys as i was clearly the least skilled person in the water at Orewa
today in these sorta conditons... no surprises as it's only the second time
i've been in any real surf and the first time that i've ridden real surf in
winds this strong and gusty... shite and i wanna travel to places like
Taranaki and Capetown eventually, places that get these conditions on a very
regular basis. i better get practicing my waveriding!!!! Anyway Gavin was
pulling these monster moves, kiteloops, handlepasses all done 10m up with
huge hangtime. Oh yes he was doin them all at once. this guy sure knows how
to kite. I mite also add that all my bogeymen on kiteforum.co.nz were there
too.. Brad, Shaan, Hippy were all there... no surprises that i kept very
quiet. i was behind enemy lines, a spy perhaps?? I kepty quiet lest i become
the laughing stock of kitebeach Orewa. Even Julie who is an ESSK local acted
as though i wasn't there.. the cold shoulder from all and sundry... the
beast from the east has been slain. He can't handle the jandal.

A guys honest opinion of local conditions. It maybe long winded but it's still a refreshing change from the usual negative drivel about kiteing in AKL, crap this, ban that, gusty here, shit there etc. Just my observations.

I rate it top 5, if compared against the other southern hemisphere spots like NW Australia, Caribbean, South Africa, Brazil etc.

I just got home (Denmark) after a 1 month trip around NZ.

This is how I rate NZ as a kite surf holiday destination.

Good:
+ Genuinely nice people
+ The weather. 23 deg, with a mixture of rain and sunshine suits me fine. Anything hotter than that slows me down.
+ It is easy to find backup activities
+ The nature and sceneries are spectacular

Not so good:
- The weather forecasts are absolutely useless. It makes it even more difficult to be at the right place at the right time.
- NZ is not a one spot destination. You need a car or van.
- You need backup activities. Bring a surfboard or a mountainside.
- It is expensive (van, petrol and other activities)
- This forum. It does not reflect the very friendly kite communities you have all around the country.

The primary stopovers of my trip were Raglan, Taranaki, Wellington, Christchurch, and Nelson.
On average I managed to kite surf 44% of the days I had available. That is not so bad, considering my biggest kite is a 14m2, and there was no wind for kite surfing at Taranaki.

I didn't manage to find a good wave spot, but the only real disappointment was the lack of wind at taranaki. Anyway, most of the non-kite days I could surf.

Finally, you really should appreciate what you got down there! Right now we have snow, sleet, subzero temperatures, and daylight from 9am to 3.30pm...

Jacob