Do you find yourself kiting the same old spot, wondering if there is anything else out there? Ewan Jaspan, Karolina Winkowska and Alexander Lewis-Hughes get off the beaten track and discover some of the secret spots Australia has to offer!

The world is covered in water, with around 372,000 miles of coastline we are lucky enough to live on a real kitesurfers paradise. Do you make the most of it?

Kitesurfers are a strange breed, they huddle together in groups, often sticking to tried and tested locations. “Kite Beach” is a case in point; there is one just about everywhere you go! It’s Kite Beach, the spot where you should be kiting, right? Although perhaps not, as this article might explain.

Kitesurfing is very visual, with a brightly coloured canopy whizzing about around 25m off the ground it’s difficult to miss as you drive around the coast. Years ago my brother and I prided ourselves on riding new beaches and discovering new spots near where we lived. One spot to this day retains the moniker we gave it “The Secret Spot”. Except it’s hard to keep a secret with a kite in the sky; needless to say, our new spot didn’t stay a secret for long.

When you go kiting do you seek and search, or do you stay and play at the tried and trusted spots in your kite bank? With limited water time, precious moments wasted hunting for something new, which might turn out to be rubbish, are often avoided in order to secure some solid water time. You’ve only got to look at the travelling itinerary of a pro kiter to see what we mean.

The season usually follows the wind, but also the same familiar locations, Brazil, South Africa, Cape Hatteras, Hood River perhaps Morocco or Sicily if you are based in Europe… We see the same videos and images from the same locations all the time here at the magazine. It’s as if the desire to try something new is becoming a lost art in the eyes of kitesurfers.

It’s totally understandable of course; you don’t want to spend a fortune heading to a new spot on the off chance it might be good. We’ve been skunked enough times to know how frustrating it is. The kitesurfing holiday market also reflects this, with your everyday rider choosing to follow the path most travelled in order to guarantee a fix. Of course with a limited budget and time constraints, this is totally understandable!

However, is there a case to be argued that we are missing out on some hidden gems? Even on a local level how often do you head to the beach you always kite at? Perhaps because that’s what your friends do, maybe because you know what to expect? There are a couple of beaches near our UK base, which reflect this. At one particular spot everyone huddles together in a group, after a busy day they all complain on a forum about how crowded it was.

With a hundred kiters on the water you could concede they have a point, but then when you come to understand that the beach is five miles long, this point very quickly breaks off. A quick kite upwind or downwind would give them all the space they need; instead, they flock together like birds of a feather.

At another spot, we can look downwind to hundreds of kiters traipsing through miles of mud to get to the water. Three miles upwind is a beach that isn’t so tidal, offers amazing waves and only has a maximum of five or six kiters riding there. How the masses haven’t spotted it is beyond me, but they stick to the places they know, at least that is my only explanation.

Personally, I’d rather have ten average sessions searching for a new spot, than ten of the same old at the local beach. That said after ten sessions searching I’d be keen to have struck untapped gold somewhere, after all, that is what this sport is about for me. I see the same thing the world over, in Mauritius, everyone kites at Le Morne, in Cabarete everyone kites at Kite Beach, in South Africa everyone kites around Blouberg…

This issue three like-minded pros, keen for an adventure recount some of their experiences of getting off the beaten path in Australia and the rewards it can bring. Karolina Winkowska, Ewan Jaspan and Alex Lewis-Hughes all know the value of looking for something different… Perhaps their inspirational stories about hidden secrets will inspire you to venture away from the pack, travel the path least trod and discover your own pot of gold!

Karolina Winkowska

Australia is a destination I always look forward to going to after a long year of training and competing. I usually go to a few different places in Australia as there many different spots to check out. As a freestyle rider, I am often looking for flat-water locations and small kicker spots of which some of the best ones are in Western Australia. The flat-water spots you’ve probably heard about are Safety Bay and Woodies (Woodman’s Point). They are famous because the wind just doesn’t stop blowing there in the summer.

These two places are excellent, but there are so many other sick spots as well; you just have to be brave enough to move around and check them out. Of course, it’s impossible to go to every ‘secret’ spot in Australia, but I try to ride at least one new place every year. I usually end up checking more than one new location, but I know many people who came to WA from overseas and have never even ridden at a different beach. Training hard is important when you are a professional athlete, but it is also important to give yourself the pleasures of travelling and exploring a new spot. Australia is a big country, and as you can imagine it also has countless kiteboarding spots, which is why it’s good to move around from the crowds to find the ultimate uncrowded spots.

Many of these places are in remote destinations where the wind is not very consistent, but once you get there when it’s windy, and nobody is there you feel like you’ve discovered something awesome. It is the best feeling ever when you find the perfect spot, the wind is blowing, and nobody is riding. The entire beach is there for you, but since nobody is there, you have some questions on your mind. Are you allowed to ride here? Are there any hazards? Maybe there are dangerous animals? This last question applies to most of Australia of course!

This year I looked around Mandurah area, a little town south of Perth, located around a lake with many canals. Everybody knows that there are good flat water spots in Mandurah, but nobody wants to tell you where exactly they are and when is the best time to go there. We drove around a neighbourhood area for a while until we found this little, perfect pond, surrounded by a narrow concrete path for people to walk their dogs. Nobody was swimming there, or kiteboarding, it was that perfect location to give it a go. It was amazing to cut lines on the butter flat water with nobody else around to make any chop. I wish I had a house there so I could just have my perfect little sessions every day. If we had stayed at the usual beaches, we would never have discovered this place!

Alexander Lewis-Hughes

I also frequent the west coast a lot in the summers, but the truth is my home is on the east coast, and it also has many unique spots to experience and an entirely different flora and fauna set to explore. While the west is hot and dry the east is tropical and often humid in comparison. The whole east coast from Melbourne to Cape York is a travellers best friend. To explore the entire east coast properly, you would need tens of years; luckily this is also the reason it’s still possible to find empty spots all to yourself!

There’s obviously the east coast kiting meccas like Melbourne, Sydney, The Sunshine Coast and Cairns, but in between these spots are a host of other flat water spots, beach breaks and point breaks for every skill level. My favourite stretch of the East coast is between Brisbane and Sydney, the weather is beautiful in summer, and there’s a variety of waves to explore.

Half way between Brisbane and Sydney is the hotspot; there’s never too many people as it’s as far as possible from the main cities and the climate and swell are about as good as it gets. I love this stretch of coastline and surrounding hinterland and could easily spend a long time exploring it all. The waves can be amazing here, and if you’re an avid surf kiter and don’t mind the odd windless day to surf, I’d highly suggest a trip here.

My suggestions for places to go aren’t exactly direct; your best bet is to hire a car and start driving. Conditions change all the time, and you can’t just go to one spot and get it firing every day. You need to be agile and flexible in your approach. If you follow the wind forecast and check the spots on the map that look like they will line up, you will be rewarded. The lazy will perish.

Ewan Jaspan

What I love most about kiting in Australia is that we have conditions from all around the globe, packed into one island. From tropical rainforest and trade winds in North Queensland to perfect swell and sea breezes down the East Coast, rugged conditions on the south coast mixed with summer thermals and then the pumping ‘Fremantle Doctor’ out west, we’ve got you covered.

I recently just discovered a new spot not even 30 minutes drive from home, which mimicked the slicks of Cape Hatteras. Hatteras is one of the only places I’ve seen with these crazy rivers and ponds surrounded by grass, and I never imagined my own home spot had the same thing!

After a long session at the regular beach, I decided to go further down the coast with my kite and see what was down there. I kited along the beach and then after about 20 minutes riding saw a little inlet off the shoreline. After taking the risk of getting stuck in the swamp I actually found myself in a 1-2m wide river, weaving for miles, connected by little pools that were in themselves perfect kite spots. I’ve never ridden through anything like that in my life; it was kite perfection right on my doorstep.

After about an hour playing around, I found a new way out which led me into some salt lakes all the way back to where I started. Totally unexpected and almost by accident I had one of my best sessions since I learnt.

Kiteboarding is a fantastic sport; we aren’t bound by anything and can go where we please. I found myself travelling down a coastline with no roads, no pathways and no signs of civilisation to a spot literally only accessible by kite. Australia is such a vast country, and now I have more motivation to go and explore what the continent has to offer, as the possibilities seem to be totally endless, and I haven’t even scratched the surface.

If you ever find yourself travelling out this way, don’t stick to the spots that you see the pros riding such as Safety Bay in Western Australia, rent yourself a car and explore and you’ll be astounded at what you can find (and how big the country is). Nowadays with Google maps we can quickly scout out far better spots and start to discover new kite spots almost every day, so get out there and explore, it’s the best part about our sport!

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By Karolina Winkowska, Alexander Lewis-Hughes, Ewan Jaspan

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