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Extreme Kites Labour Day Explorers' Weekend Friday March 8th - Monday March 11th Land kiters for two decades have been kiting Waratah Bay, kicking off from the Sandy Point foreshore. This time we're looking at exploring the East side of Shallow Inlet, launching from the Boat Ramp and traversing the east side in to Wilsons Promontory. Having never done this before, anyone joining us is advised to be equipped for all terrain with either Big Foots or MidiXL's. Alternatively having a ski-rope in case you need to pull through some soft patches if on Barrows or Midis may also be a workable option. Route Planned Tides Late afternoon/evening tides, with daylight savings still running we'll be able to kite well in to the evening. Accommodation Options Shallow Inlet Campground - $20/night (Unpowered Sites) Shallow Inlet Caravan Park - $40-$126/night (Unpowered Sites, Powered Sites and Cabins) Wilsons Prom Holiday Park - $65-$315/night (Unpowered Sites, Powered Sites and Cabins) Sandy Point Caravan Park - $55 - $65/night (Unpowered Sites, Powered Sites)

Kitebuggy flying under a Moustache!

My Sysmic S2 buggy is for sale. This is a great stable buggy in good condition. It has been washed with fresh water and sprayed with silicon spray after all beach rides, but predominantly used in-land on grass ovals. MidiXL tyres. Front wheel mud flap. The rear axle is removed quickly and easily with 4 bolts, enabling the buggy to be transported easily. It fits in the back of my Subaru Impreza hatch. With my buggy, I am including a number of free items to allow somebody new to buggying to start immediately having learnt how to fly power kites. Included for free in the sale of this Sysmic Buggy will be: The Sysmic 80 litre kite bag which can be strapped to the rear of the buggy. A helmet (one of the 2 in the photo) A Flysurfer Peak 1 9m depower single skin kite. This kite has seen a fair bit of use but still flies well. There are a few repairs to the leading edge. It includes lines and the bar that came with the kite. It is in a small backpack which can be used as a harness. However!! See next Size small ProLimit seat harness. Knee and elbow pads “Walk of Shame” Peter Lynn buggy tow rope. This is a real bargain. Happy to discuss with any prospective buyer. Be quick at the remarkable price of $450

Late model PL Buggy with all the upgrades done. Midi Wheels Siderail Pads Wide Axle 20mm rear axle bolts Spray guard $620 including Freight

Nice drone footage from today on Farnborough Beach at Yeppoon. Step-daughter's boyfriend Johnnie just trying out his new drone and camera. Ant out on his board and me on the Sysmic with 5m Method - a perfect winters day in Qld...?

A bit of land kiting action from the french where have I heard that track before

Hey, am new here but just wanted to share my entry to the sport as someone with the disability (paraplegic) Here is a little video of my recent experience on new brighton beach in CHCH, NZ. Have been lucky enough to have the help of Gav Mulvay to set up a buggy with hand controls and am having a great time with it. (thanks gav). It is a pretty simple and easily removable mod that seems to work great.

For those of you that may have missed some of the recent posts in this thread... It appears for the last 4 years I have been buggying backwards and once again (though I hate to admit it) @.Joel Is right. But it wasn't the foot-pegs on backwards but the front fork. I explained to my 15 year old daughter and her exact words were "your a noodle!"... Before- and after-

It looks like I am going to be inheriting a couple of thousand dollars and I am thinking I should maybe upgrade from the Peter Lynn Comp XR+. The budget is fixed at $2000, the surface I buggy on is rock solid with a loose covering to allow you to slide and goes through standard tyres really quickly (i'm running highway rated at present). What buggy would you recommend (i'm about 80kgs and 172 cm)? I have tried an Sysmic S2 and preferred my PL - but that was a couple of years ago!

Four years ago today I got my buggy! Thanks for the reminder from Facebook! Bloody hell I've aged a bit

So another proposed run out at Waratah Bay for the VBA group, a 9am start at the boat ramp (see 8th August post for location details) I'm hoping the weather will be nice enough to get in a good day of Blokarting/Buggying. We shall probably do a day trip as the nights are still on the cold side to test out the camper trailer, but have you noticed the mornings are lighting up? I get excited this time of year as it means that the days of going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark are finally out numbered for the rest of this year. So watch this space and I hope a few - if the day goes ahead, are able to come down and have a play on the sand. From Mez

Some awesome buggying action on the Ozone Edge...

Mad Way Mongolia Wrap Up We have done almost twice the distance we set out to do and done about 1500km upwind, the route for the next trip will need to be longer and more ambitious. The wide open plains of the Eurasian steppes are great for high speed and long distance but I miss the challenge of crossing high mountain passes like we had on the 2014 trip. We spend 3 days in Holangol, its hard to stop after so many days of nomadic life. We are using our unloaded buggy's with the electric drive to get around town. We eventually pack up the buggy's and ship them to some friends in China for storage. We catch a train back to Beijing, Joe's off to Canada and im working in China for a few weeks. The buggy's have done over 5000km counting last years trip, the only trouble we have had is worn out brake pads and some bent panniers. The kites have taken a flogging, we ran out of repair tape long ago and they are covered in medical tape, we have broken many lines and bridles but they are still going strong. Kites used, most commonly used in blue- NASA para wings(npw model 21, 2 line) 1 square meter x2 1.5m x2 2m 2.2m 2.4m 3.75m 4.5m Low aspect single skins made from modified Peter Lynn UniQ plans- 2m 3m 4m 8m High aspect single skins made from PL plans- 4m x2 6m Foil kites- 4m ozone access 2010 6m ozone access 2013 4.9m PL reactor. We traveled 3693 km in 49 days We walked about 50km mostly to get to food or water We motored 15km Fastest speed 75kph using the 4m uniq Longest day 232 km We only had one day without wind. I would like to thank 2C for the handy solar powered light caps to use and give away. solarlightcap.com Bikelights for the powerful night lights. bikelights.co.nz Cactus Outdoor for the tough canvas thorn resistant supertrousers. cactusoutdoor Salcom technologies for the Inreach satellite communicator. salcom.co.nz Ashburton Powdercoating. Goods saddlery Ashburton for the seats. Heading to the pub.

Day 49 (06 June 2015) Good going in the morning over green flats and hills, it feels like the undeveloped bliss of Mongolia for a few hours but as we get closer to the city of Holingol it becomes impossibly congested, the usual afternoon thunderstorms arrive and we shelter in a drain under the road. We are still 15km from town so we rig up our electric motors and crawl down the edge of the road until we find a dirt road to follow, this leads us to a small village on the outskirts of town. We motor and walk into town, we have decided to call it quits here, the infrastructure is getting too hard to get through, we know there is the Holangol grasslands north of us but we have no way of getting there. Its getting dark and a truck gives us a ride to a nice hotel. Distance traveled 54 km Total Distance 3693 km.

Day 48 (05 June 2015) Good run down the road in the morning, there's 3 levels of powerlines and a substation to pass, we weave our kites through the whole lot. another huge coal mine looms over the horizon and we get caught in its wind shadow, we walk to a highway service center and the staff cooks us dinner, Joe explains kite buggying with a demo in their car park, we stay at a crappy $20 hotel across the road. Distance traveled 66.5 km Total distance 3638

Day 47 (04 June 2015) Its a maze of powerlines and we keep getting stuck behind roads and railways, we travel down the roadside for a while using short lines to fit under the powerlines, I see a thunderstorm coming and shelter in a petrol station, Joe accidentally flies his kite kite through a hole in a large road sign 1km short of the petrol station, it starts raining heavily as he is trying to retrieve it, the lines are tangled around the sign and the kite is looping out of reach, there's lightning everywhere and Joe is holding up his alloy tent pole to retrieve the kite, this works and a very wet Joe joins me in the petrol station. There's no wind in the afternoon so we find a $5 hotel with internet and a western style toilet. A Mongolian tiger beetle eating ants near our camp.

Day 46 (03 June 2015) We try some more off roading in the morning, the rolling green hills are nice but the fences keep pushing us back to the road, we pass another large mine and power station, this is a very industrial part of China. Distance traveled 74 km Total distance 3557 km

Day 45 (02 June 2015) The mobile company I am using has just disconnected my phone so we are flying blind with no maps. There is a nice wide road verge to follow today, we kite through another town, ducking and weaving through powerlines, signs and roundabouts. The road turns into one narrow lane and our kites are over powerlines and trees, we pass a police car like this and they aren't happy. They tell us our vehicles are illegal and have a truck backed up to take us away, we have traveled over 3000km with only wind power and we are keen to keep it that way. After lots of negotiating with a translator someone at their station tells us our "special vehicles" are allowed on the road, but only during the day. We walk 2 km and camp with some cows. Distance traveled 87 km Total distance 3483 km.

Day 44 (01 June 2015) No wind or light headwind all day, we try to creep our way up the road on large kites, we have only made it a few km when Joe's kite catches a freak gust, normally the buggy would slide and absorb the power but there's no give on seal and he gets pulled out, bounces off the fence, high into the air and comes down in a heap. There's no serious injuries and shortly after some policemen arrive and tell us this is very dangerous because a driver could fall asleep and hit us, he is right about it being dangerous and if he was 5 minutes earlier he would have seen why. We walk / limp a few more km and camp Distance traveled 12 km Total distance 3396km

Day 43 (31 May 2015) We order a taxi for 8am and leave at 6, its a gale outside and the dust coming from the coal mine makes it hard to see 100m, there's so much coal in the air the closing your mouth makes a crunch between your teeth. We leave town down road verge, we are on 1 meter kites with 1 meter lines and there's trucks looming out of the dust. By the outskirts of town we have both run over our kites and damaged them so we switch to 1.5m kites on 10m lines for the rest of the day, the wind doesn't let up all day and at one stage Joe hits 71kph down the road passing trucks, I dont think anyone has been this fast on a nasa wing kite before. We find a nice campsite in some rushes when the wind dies. Distance traveled 87km Total distance 3384km

Day 42 (30 May 2015) We find the old road in the morning but its criss crossed by fences with no gates so its back to the main road. The large city of Xlinhot soon looms over the horizon, it surrounded by huge coal mines and highways with no verge. We manage to kite half way around in an orchard and walk to a shop for supplies, our feet are starting so fall apart after so many days on the move and having to haul our buggy's around all these towns isn't helping, the shop owner offers to store our buggy's and take us to a hotel, good plan but soon some very suspicious policemen arrive and ask us lots of dumb questions, they take us to a different hotel, then another and tell us we cant leave. feels like we are in a spy movie. People around here aren't used to dealing with tourists, come to think of it we didn't meet anyone in Inner Mongolia who had ever met a foreigner, this corner of China isn't on the way to anywhere or known for any tourist attractions. Distance traveled 72km Total distance 3298km sneaking under a moving coal conveyor

Day 41 (29 May 2015) 30km down the road to Xin-Hot in the morning, there is lots of people stopping to take photos and leaving their car on the road with the doors open, some close calls with trucks bearing down on them. 2km from town Joe is pulled over by a small angry policeman, he tries to take Joe away but joe is politely refusing, soon 2 larger policemen arrive and tell the first one to be nice to us, he gives us a police escort into town, buys us lunch and gives us a police escort 40km out of town, he is causing more problems than he is solving so we head down a dirt track to escape. we cant find a way forward so we head towards an old road on our map and camp. Distance traveled 81km Total distance 3226km

Day 40 (28 May 2015) We head east again, good to be going with the wind again, we soon run out out of desert and into green pastures and fences, we try leapfrogging fences for a while but on or beside the road is the only way forward. I drop my phone and spend an hour backtracking to find it We find the city of Mandalt in the afternoon, its surrounded by a maze of powerlines, it takes us hours to weave and walk our way around, we then pass an old brick works and a small town made entirely from bricks. By now its dark and still windy so we keep going through the night, there is trucks whizzing by every few minutes, we must be an odd sight in the dark. We have been thinking the first police we come across will put an end to our adventures and at midnight we meet our first police car, they ask us where we are from and hand us a bag of food, we camp at 2am. Distance traveled 232km, our longest day. Total distance 3145 The 4wd tracks in China have 3 ruts, perfect for buggys.

Day 39 (27 May 2015) We enjoy a good breakfast with Sukhbat and family then load our buggys on the roof of an old Russian jeep, walking or cycling over the border is not allowed so we have to drive 500m to the Chinese border. We unload our extensive pile of wheels, bags and buggys and feed them through the baggage scanner, there is lots of questions asked like where are you going, and what are these small cars for? Joe's Kiwi accent is even harder to understand than mine so I let him do the talking, we learn that "downwind" is not a suitable answer to where are you going. They make us wait at the side for an hour then surprisingly let us through, we wake our driver and head into The Chinese city of Erenhot, the old jeep looks out of place in this modern city and our driver is keen to unload us. We buy lots of fruit and start hauling our buggy's through town, we find the red light district, a rubbish dump, a highway, and eventually the Gobi desert, in the fading light we buggy 10km out of town and camp. Distance traveled 19km Total distance 2894