Last weekend I picked up my first (real) kite a 3 meter Ozone from Butch in Foxton. Unfortunately the wind was not on my side and I did not get a chance to have a play.
Later in the evening I went down our local park in Paraparaumu and managed half an hour flying in some 15-20 knot wind.
Since then every night here has been still with no wind, I did try to fly the kite but no luck , getting it off the ground.

Today there was a small amount of breeze, I decided to head to Waikanae beach as there is less driftwood and a better chance of some constant wind, although the wind was probably no more than 5-10 knots it was enough to keep the kite in the air and practise some of the skills I will need in future. I spent about 90 minutes playing and loved it.

Here's hoping Easter weekend brings some wind so I can get back down the Beach

hey, way to go! sounds great.

your looking good for thurs,fri,sat,sun.
www.windfinder.com/forecast/waikanae_beach_river_mouth.
when wind is light head for the river mouth as the wind funnels through there a little quicker.

unfortunatly tide is not on your side this weekend
2010/04/01 12:31 1.03
2010/04/01 18:40 -1.00
2010/04/02 00:48 0.96
2010/04/02 06:55 -0.96
2010/04/02 13:04 0.94
2010/04/02 19:13 -0.90
2010/04/03 01:20 0.87
2010/04/03 07:29 -0.85
2010/04/03 13:37 0.81
2010/04/03 19:45 -0.77
2010/04/04 01:53 0.75
2010/04/04 07:03 -0.71
2010/04/04 13:11 0.65
2010/04/04 19:18 -0.61

www.niwa.co.nz/our-services/online-services/tides

but good effort. do you have a landboard?

I don't have a landboard yet but definately want one, especailly after seeing so much hard packed sand last night to race on.
I will just have to do some more overtime

your beach is sweeeeeeeeeet. i did a session there a couple of weeks ago. cruised up to te horo and back (on the landboard). wind was 10-15 knots. it was a nice cruisy session. busted some jumps over the big puddles at the river mouth. if your confident not to crash your kite (yourl be flying over driftwood) you will be able to fly at high tide in the soft sand at the river mouth.

Always try for the beach or as close to as possible. clean wind is soo soooo soooooo much better to kite in than gusty poo coming over trees and houses.

I agree on clean air made a big difference, I was at the river mouth kiting and it made a huge difference compared to the local park, even though it's a 15-20 minute drive to the beach it was well worth the extra effort, the problem with paraparaumu is there is way too much drift wood and I thought the kite would end up getting snagged.
Shame it's getting dark so early, i'll soon be forced to only kite at weekends.

yeah be careful, getting a kite snagged on the drift wood can very easily put a hole in it. but if not to bad can be easy to fix.

Glad you are stoked on kiting now!
Keep practicing and come on up to Foxton Anytime for a session with us. Ill look forward to it.

I've become obsesed with checking the wind conditions, does that mean I'm hooked??
I'll definitely come up at some point for a session.

all over for you now... and your in the land of wind. start saving your pennies now. it wont be long before you want a bigger kite, board, depower kites, bigger depower..... and the list goes on.

I was down the Beach again today for several hours this time round, I ran into Steph and some other kite surfers out there, there were more kites than I expected to see.
Great to see how popular kiting is in NZ and locally too, I am thinking I want a landboard next to play with, followed by a bigger kite, then next summer I may start thinking about getting into the water.

In the meanwhile back to the beach again tomorrow I think.

look dor a landboard with channel trucks MBS or Ground industries. Deck length around 105cm. That will be a good stable size to belt up and down the beach.

You know you are hooked when you can't look at leaves on a tree or flags without converting their movement to km per hour

At least somebody's getting some kiting in as the wind in chch sucks at the mo and is either wrong or not enough or at the wrong time i.e. i'm at work haven't been out in a month so desperate i took the buggy to the beach in the hope it would be winder there and got there in was 3.5knots bummer anyway hoping for better wind over the next few days as the evenings are now over and winter in on the way.

a month? sad...... in the last 9 days i've had 5 kiting sessions! wahoo.

today was supposed to be poo. 9 knots and high tide at 2 so no landboarding. but it picked up to 13-14knots just enough to get going in the water for a chilled splash in the waves. couldn't quite stay upwind but managed to surf some little waves. nice un expected session.