If anything is going to bring out your jealous side while you’re stuck at home under lockdown, this story is it. 2019 Kite Park League champion Ewan Jaspan and fellow Naish riders Katie Potter and Peri Roberts managed to escape to the beautiful turquoise waters of Australia’s famous Barrier Reef and Whitsundays… There were the predictably stunning consequences, but more than their fair share of mishaps too.
WORDS PERI ROBERTS
If you think about escape, what comes to mind? Breaking free from the confines of a tricky situation? Escaping havoc to re-define your way of day-today living? Or do the images of a simple paradise flood your imagination with the beauty and good vibes an island retreat might bring you? Put them all together and you get a 2400-kilometer car trip, three state border crossings (Australia is massive), lots of coffee and three wind-hungry kiters searching for the ultimate escape from some of the toughest Covid-19 lockdowns regulations on the planet. After restrictions in our home states worsened, Ewan, Katie and I decided to travel north to catch
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some wind and warmer weather. The Naish duo are from Victoria and I’m from New South Wales, both states that were dealing with some pretty harsh lockdowns. Ideas were passed around about the possibility of kiting the ultimate paradise in the Whitsundays – known in Australia as the home of the rich and famous. Think desert islands, crystal clear waters, white sands, tropical reef, blues of every shade as far as the eyes can see, and wind… Lots of wind. Situated near the southern Great Barrier Reef, we knew that kiting at any of the 75 islands would be hard without a boat to access them. Luckily kiting brings the like-minded together and Katie has a friend that could help us out…
