Kite buggying is an obscure niche within a niche sport and kitbuggying sand dunes is crazy obscure. There is only a handfull of dudes world wide kite buggying dunes.
You hard wire the kite to the buggy, steer with your feet and dont have any brakes,,,, Its entertaining to say the least.
Anyway, it is oh for awesome. Interacting with the 3d landscape ads so much more fun and challenge into the equation. I'm guessing its very similar to snow kiting in that regard and or a big wave day in the ocean.
This year I manned up and kited up to the lighthouse which is about 80m vert of steep dune. Going up is easy, coming down,,,, you don't want to turn into a paraglider, like the snow kite boys, hard-wired into a 50kg buggy. I made damn sure I flew that kite for no unwanted loftings. Great fun...
Now when you can get up to speeds of around 60kph in the lower dunes which are undulating. It's like riding a massive wave or an endless roller coaster. However you need to keep your wits about you because the terrain can deceive you. One of the lads buggyied straight off the top of a dune and snapped his rear axle on landing,,,, Good thing the axle snapped because the next thing to absorb the impact is your spine!.....
I did the same thing that day. Flew off the top of a small 15 foot dune, but managed to get the kite above my head and land soft enough to ride it out!........
