Neale Park is a utopia for kitefliers, “absolutely a bloody paradise” when the sea breezes are right.
Kites from across the motu and offshore, including 27 metre long windsocks and a 90ft spinsock, will ascend for the Nelson Kite Festival’s 34th edition on 17 and 18 January.
Nelson Kite Club, with promotional support from the New Zealand Kitefliers Association, has guided the two-day event any way the wind blows, but kite club secretary Ted Howard says with a good wind window, it’ll be a weekend with flying colours.
“It’s an annual chance to show off Neale Park in Nelson as one of the best urban kite fields, not only in New Zealand, but in the world,” he enthuses. “It’s so smooth to fly in, and people who come in from around the country or from overseas are so mesmerised by the wind, they just want to stay there and keep flying until the wind drops. So it is a very amazing place that we have right here on our doorstep”.
Leisurely kitefliers and the “real showstopper” kite displays are on the cards, including those from an Ashburton kite factory created by Peter Lynn, one of Aotearoa’s kitemaking luminaries who has constructed some of the world’s largest.
Octopus, stingrays and wolves are flying animals those on the ground can marvel at.
Ted says the future of the event under Nelson Kite Club could be up in the air as membership has fallen.
He says delegating the festival to a service organisation like Lions, of which he’s also a member, could keep it afloat.
“[Nelson Kite Club] used to have 30 or 40 members, but we’re down to maybe half a dozen… we’ve discussed [the need for more members] at kite festivals but had almost zero interest,” Ted says.
“As we get old and tired, we would prefer younger people to pick it up. Hopefully somebody from the Lions Club is going to come along and watch what we do, and then we’ll discuss with them in February if we can get them to pick it up and continue to run the festival, with me still coordinating the event.”
