Am I the last to hear about this?

Walked out of a meeting to take a personal call when a brochure on a colleagues desk catches my eye. Especially for the heavily modified and braced PL race on the cover... Something we haven't seen yet. Steve Gurney and Craig Hansen appears to be leading some charity adventure to raise money against child trafficking etc.

Mad way south or mad way down:
Pretty much doing the African leg of the Paris to Dakar through the Sahara on buggys.
madwaysouth.com/

While you guys were gearing up for the 90mile some had more epic plans!

I think you might be, Craig brought that buggy up chch at the end of last year and i was doing 65kmph and he was getting away from me. I had ago on it with the tariler attached with weight in the back and it was sacary with the PL twister. Jeff the aussie whose idea in has been was up at the nelson kite festival in jan an absolutly awesome bloke and great guy. He took his family sailing around southeast Asia for a year and had never really sailed before and he had some stories to tell. when he got back to aussie he said right whats next and this trip is what he came up with. Since then here obvisously talked Craig into it. The ultimate kiting trip would have to be either a circum-navigation of the globe only using kite power or the pole to pole routine Michael Palin did.

yes silly buggers.
i wasn't aware that gurney was a kiter?

Neither was jeff about a year ago but men do some crazy things for adventure i would never do a coast the coast or pull a kayak over the alps just to paddle down the other side. Now having said that i don't know if steve is going on the trip i.e. kiting or is support crew or thinks its a great idea and cause or what

I'm not really a kiter, but have been crashing kites and buggies as a hobbyist for about 10 years and kite-boarding badly for 4 or 5 years. Developing new stuff lately for kite-kayaking. (it's on youtube on my website wooden boat adventure part 3 if you wanna see 1st attempt) Looking forward to the Dakar adventure, lots of unknowns make it sweet, need to rely on risk assessment. Love your circumnavigate the globe idea!!! I'm keen!

Well good on you Steve. as your reputation preceeds you i'm sure yourl achieve what you set out to do. you should chuck that buggy in a plane an come and hit 90 mile with us as a tiny warm up.... or isn't that far enough for you? hehe. too soft core maybe.

wow Steve, great to know your into kite buggying and kite surfing too. Your welcome to join us any time for some buggy fun , we have enough buggies etc, and probly kites so just bring yourself

I wonder how Steve would go on the beach racer tyres lads ?

Regards Wayne
of Auckland based kite buggy group

News story here.

www.stuff.co.nz/sport/2381135/Steve-Gurn...r-bust-by-kite-buggy

Hey Steve you should come and a blast with us from north beach surf club in chch up to the wiamak and back, a little trek from your part of town, but well worth it on a good easternly.

My hat off to you guys i buggied 80km in one day and that was trying enough espeailly on that lee side leg ached for about a day or two afterwards, so i can only imagane the hard work and physiscal discomfort you'll be putting yourselves through, but what a reward and a world's first at the end of it.

On the subject of the charity fund raising are you going to be doing T-shirts with that picture on the website on them if so i'm in. Don't think it'll be to hard to find other kiters to buy them either as we are suckers for T's.

maybe you need some sand coloured kites to confuse the sand pirates and also sand coloured buggies and faces.

as far as sore from the pull of the kite. if the kites aren't hard wired to the buggy you guys are mad. Talk to Jimmy22 and Ganet for the mods to connet kite to buggy and get rid of all that side pull on you via a harness.

plummet wrote:


still have to hold your course with your legs and for me thats the part that makes your you ache not just the pull from the kites on the body.

But i do agree hard wiring the kites to the buggies would be a good option and help reduce the fatigue factor espeailly if you few days in a row of upwind runs.

aching legs are easy fixed skypirate mate...a bit of bunjie cord on the upwind footstrap pulled back to the frame does the trick...not perfect, but this is the home of improvisation afterall
steve....you are going to be legendary mate...i hope you make it, youl put kitebuggying on the map, infact a huge great chunk of the map good luck.

Steve made the news on TV one tonite. tvnz.co.nz/othersports-news/gurney-sets-...e-1-42-2706597/video

id be up for the tee shirt too i emailed Garth at madwaysouth.com about them.

We might have our wish granted for t-shirts just checked out the mad way south website and they have a merchandise page coming soon. T's and stickers for me!!!!

Just ordered my T-shirt from the website a little on the expensive side but its going to a good cause. So come on guys support the guys and get those T's ordered.

Spoke to Craig the other day wehn he came and pickup my 6.4m Reactor to take with him. He and steve leave on the 26th july for London then drive to the south of spain across the gibraltar straight in the med into morroco and south to the sahara then on the buggies all the way to Dakar. Defineitly a MAD WAY SOUTH.

sweet, i think ill do the same then

steve has a spot gps , it leaves bread crumbs on a map so you can follow progress etc live ish . they seem pretty well prepared now, a few people have come forward who have been there before and lots of good ideas have come from that, good luck Steve and Craig Craig you have to come back so we can have a shot at the race cup !!

Just heard from craig this morning that the guys have passed the 1000km record. Though the adveture so far hasn't been incident free with steve having a crash on lava rocks and spending the a night in hospital he is ok just a precaution. you can read all about on http://www.madwaysouth.com/index.ews and click on blog.

Hey guys Steve has written a blog about his crash on their website http://www.madwaysouth.com/blog.ews?id=21

Yeah got that text from craig as well. Good to hear...

Then herd on the news that night or was it the next day that steve had to have his sunglasses surgically removed from his forehead after an unwanted lofting.... off to read the blog to see if those details were embellished by the news or not.

It sounds very grueling.

I also have to say i have the upmost respect for Steve Gurney he is surely a legend. However reading his blog it kinda sounds like he doesn't have the kiting experience to tackle such a mamoth task. So he gets extra nutcase points for tackling such and adventure with limited experience.