kiteboarder in Canberra

Hi my name is Andrea, I normally live and kite on the Sunny Coast QLD, but because of work I am stuck in Canberra for coming months. I have brought my gear for that off chance I may get to kite but I am unsure of where and because I do not know any other kiters here I need some help! I will have every weekend and some afternoons to kite.

Any Canberra based kiters who could help me find the spots please email me or reply to forum so I could PM you.

Cheers, Andrea

hey try and contact tobes he lives in the area of batemans bay and is a super friendly dude and a sick kiter he does post on here so he shouldn't be to hard to track down

you have to admit tobes is a bit of a legend round the south coast esspecially on the mambo scene Do It

Hey mate, I'm in a similar situation, havent kited the lake yet, although I'm still waiting for my day. I'd say there's been maybe 2 kitable days on the lake since I've been here (November), but as lostinlondon says, it is tricky. My advice is to have 'downwinder support' that you can call if things go wrong - its a long walk of shame back around the lake! You'll learn to love(/hate) that drive to the coast - I have done a day trip numerous times now.

I am going to head to Green Island (Lake Conjolla) On Sunday and/or Monday assuming the weather is good (although the forecast is getting worse by the day). The weather has been poo for the last couple of months and I am gagging for a kite.

Sk

It can be done, and is ok if you get a good season of easterlies. Well better than nothing. Surely this summer was good, we had more southerlies than NEsters up here.

Just bring a friend a sand bag and don't hang around on the shore weighting to get lofted into the trees. Also you will be swimming, unless you have some nice windsurfing friends happy to tow your arse in when it goes wrong.

I used to have fun.

It its just up from blue gum point where most people windsurf from in an easterly. I did add the location to the youtube vid, but can't seem to work out how to view the location now??

Try this link: www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1_kTeWrJNc4FbNTIq-il-bWxNbsI&ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=-35.29243,149.140434&spn=0.055905,0.11673&z=13

In the easterlies, I always found it easiest/safest to kite into the wind shadow behind Blue Gum point and let the kite drop into the water, and wind up the lines. I have done standard landings at the launch site, but the risk of damaging yourself / kite is really quite high.

East Basin was better for westerlies, but you want to be pretty sure its not going to gust up to 40kts. If it drops off to nothing you can either float around and hope that it picks up before you drift to close to the shore, or wrap up your lines and start swimming. Definitely need to have a good self rescue technique sorted because you will almost certainly need it at some stage. Also you need to be pretty competent, because if you lose ground and end up on the other side of the lake its a long swim/taxi ride back to your car. The middle of the lake has nice launch areas, but the water is super choppy and confused due to the concrete walls. Not very pleasant at all. I have also kited a lake tugeranong in southerlies.

All better than nothing, but not as good as a trip to the coast.

Talk to scotty @ Wetspot in fyshwick, he might have some more up to date info.

Cya Pete.