General Kiting

Hi all,

A couple of you may have heard about an expedition my brother and I organised in Brazil last year - 1000km along the coast without any support.

Having never sat in a buggy, or even used a traction kite until a week before departure; many thought we were mad, and the rest thought we'd kill ourselves. However, I'm pleased to say we lived to tell the tale and a short video is now on facebook!



One of the best (and definitely hardest) experiences we have ever had. However massive thanks to Craig Hansen and his team for helping make it possible.

Check it out if you have a spare 10mins. (Turn up the volume!)

Interested to hear any thoughts.

Great video and adventure guys. 150kg excess baggage, that must have cost a bit extra and here I am limited to 14kg max for my island hopper holiday. How did you get along for fresh water. Food I assume would have been mostly dehydrated stuff and light. Water is always heavy and with all that exercise you would use a fair amount of it.

Any plans for another trip?


Regards,
Norman.

Nice work guys.
I must admit that I was one of the people that thought you were crazy for heading off with no kite experience. But you proved me wrong...... Just
You will have to do another expedition, imagine how much easier it will be with all that new kite flying skill.

Hi Norman and Andy,

We actually only took 24 cereal bars with us for the whole trip. We were limited to what we could carry, and after lots of emailing, blog reading and searching along google maps hoped we would be able to find places to buy food along the way. This was mostly correct, however i did loose 8kg in the first two weeks through lack of food and massive amounts of exercise! 76kg when we left, and 68kg when we arrived in a chemist in Fortaleza to get more after sun! For water we had 3litre camel baks at. Filled up at every opportunity and carried More bottles in our bags.we only had one hairybmoment when we nearly ran out of water on a very remote beach.

Excess baggage was ok. It took around 30mins of pursuading and our charity t-shirts but eventually only cost us £60!

The next adventure? Firstly we were mad to do this one with absolutely no training. This wasn't out of choice, just that by the time all kit arrived only had a week before setting off, then unfortunately the wind totally died that week at home and the kites couldnt even get up! We were learning how to kite buggy through trial and error for the first two weeks of the adventure. Madness. That coupled with the difficulties of the trip anyway meant we had a few down moments! However when we got it, the distance flewby and smiles broadened.

Therefore for the next trip we have both said we will plan the trip further in advance to leave ourselves with months of training.

I am trying to encourage my brother to get involved with a transatlantic crossing by kite alone. The idea is to change sport every expedition, however we loved using the kites, and it would save us learning a totally new skill. Cornwall to Rio in 2016 sounds good with a couple of small bike based trips meantime!

Thanks for watching the video and commenting guys.

Must say I am most impressed with your adventure and have been longing to have a crack at such an expedition myself.

If ever your looking for another adventure and would be interested in coming to Australia I would absolutely love to get involved.
Please do let us know if it's something you'd like to think about.