Margaret River - Day One

Dan and I pulled into Margaret River as the sun was setting across the vineyards of southwest WA and, as tempted as I was to stop for a photo, the threat of rogue kangaroos throwing themselves in front of tourists’ rental cars was too great to warrant hanging around - even for a couple of minutes.  We pulled into the dimly lit main drag of the town around 8, grabbed a slab of beer from the drive through bottle-shop and settled into our hostel for the night.  Dan was looking as forward to getting stuck in to the beer as I was about the promise of big waves and a cranking wind forecast for the next morning.  I was not going to be disappointed.

The next morning, at the crack of 11, we blitzed through the 15km drive to Prevelley Beach after a hastily slung together breakfast of coco-pops and apples.  I couldn’t believe what I saw as we pulled into the car park above the point where the Margaret River spilled into the Southern Ocean. 

Everywhere we looked along the rugged coast were huge rights and lefts – a combination of enormous 10-foot faces and heavy barreling lips, primed for surfers and spongers bobbing around in the water.  Unfortunately, the wind was yet to really start blowing (shown by the windsurfer wobbling out in the photo just beyond the cripple’s head on the left) and I realised I’d left the fins for my board back at the hostel in Margaret River.  How convenient…

We shot back to Margaret River, grabbed a quick sandwich at the hostel and wasted no time getting back down to the beach.  As we turned off the main road to head to a southern section of reef break at Gnarrabup Beach, just south of Prevelley, we saw the hideous curtains of Paul, Tom and Paddy’s van flapping in the breeze in the motor just ahead of us.  Unreal - in a country the size of Australia, with as much kiteable coastline as WA, we randomly bumped into the Bristol Boys - again!

Both of our cars parked up at Gnarabup Beach and Dan was all too happy to show the guys his newly acquired X-rays.  I snapped a couple of shots for posterity’s sake and grabbed my gear to head down to the beach with the first case of kite-inspired butterflies I’d suffered from in as long as I could remember.  The water was fairly flat on the inside, but the wind was coming over the headland and gusting like hell.  Things were not helped by the fact that the wind line seemed to coincide with a section of reef that was sucking dry between thunderous sets.  

I walked down towards the thin ribbon of sand that made up the beach, laden with my surfboard, Dan’s twintip, and my 7 and 9.  As I got onto the coastal path I saw that there were a couple of guys pumping up 7s on the beach.  Knowing there were going to be other people out with me had a fairly calming effect on the butterflies slamming into the wall of my stomach lining until I found out they were locals who were totally new to kitesurfing and couldn’t even get off the beach due to the wind swirling off the headland.  No matter, though.

I grabbed my 9, pumped up, took Dan’s twinnie (mainly so I wouldn’t have to worry about the gusting wind, the reef, AND trying to gybe a directional in the mahoosive waves) and ran towards the water.  Paul and Paddy had come down to have a look and decide whether or not it was worth going out after I’d gone out as the team guinea pig.  Again. 

Paddy launched my kite, which was intermittently luffing and shooting forward in the gusts, and I attempted a beach start that saw me fly off the beach (leaving the board behind) and slam face-first in to the water about twenty feet off the shoreline.  I resurfaced to the howls of the boys’ laughter from the beach.

After body dragging back in with a head full of water continuously spilling from my sinuses, I legged it back up the beach, fighting both to keep the 9 flying and keep my feet on the ground to begin my second attempt.  I stood on the beach, moving the kite to keep it falling from the sky above me and…..success! 

I wasn’t feeling brave enough to go out strapless on my surfboard due to the gusts (and also due to my being a total pansy) but had a pretty good session anyway, switching between my 9 and 7 and trying to avoid the massive walls of white water washing in over the reef. It was pretty decent on the inside once I got out of the wind shadow coming off the point and I even managed to throw a couple of unhooked raileys in for good measure.  (Thanks for the photos, Brenzo!)   

Even Paddy managed to choke down a spoonful of cement and hardened up enough to pump up a 7 and come and kite until he was too cold to stay on the water.

Dan spent the afternoon fishing from the pier off the boat ramp, with Paul and Tom keeping him company, and I kited until the wind got too gusty to even attempt anything hooked in, let alone unhooked.  We retreated to the car park to grab a couple of beers and watch the sunset only to get stopped by a guy who’d seen a another kiter go down in the surf out back by the reef.  This cued a fairly frantic half an hour looking for him in the blinding light that was bouncing off the water from the setting sun.  Long story short – he was fine.  Tired and a little embarrassed, but fine.  Suddenly I felt fairly justified in my decision to play it safe. 

No sooner than I put my gear down behind the hire car and began to struggle out of my knackered wetsuit, James (another English kiter we’d met in Lancelin) pulled into the car park in his battered Jeep Cherokee, having just driven down from a few days of kiting in Scarborough.  I think he was pretty gutted to have missed the day’s session but was stoked to have a second bite at the cherry on the following day, a day which promised cleaner waves and wind. 

We finished our beers and headed back to Margaret River to carry on the drinking for the night, both looking forward to the promise of another windy day on the horizon, stoked in the fact that this was only day one and the next was looking even better.