West Oz, Geraldton: what, where, when and how...

26th Apr 2008 @ 03:13:20 PM

sSs Team Rider, Kit Brogan, continues his Australian updates with a description of the always popular Geraldton Windsurfing Festival and a quick guide on how to get the best out of a road trip to this top spot. Kit takes up the story:

Geraldton is one of the more popular stops for any windsurfer to venture to WA for windsurfing. They have a festival every year here in January and this year was no exception, except of course for the presence of sSs team Riders, Kit Brogan and Simon Hurrey. The festival is also sort of a contest which takes place over an entire weekend (day and night). It is a freesailing event whereby everyone windsurfs as much as they can, parties as hard as they can and chats to as many people on the beach as they can. Winning is very much secondary to simply promoting the sport of windsurfing and the winnner is chosen not so much on sailing ability but on their attitude and enthusiasm for the sport.

This year was windy, windy, windy!! Both days were blowing at about 25+ knots, cross shore with a 2-3m swell producing excellent ramps for jumping. There were over a hundred competitiors at the event, including Jaeger Stone, who was doing some insane push loop forwards, as well as a lot of people who simply turned up to watch the action. Simon impressed everyone with his freestyle repetoire on the inside, whilst on the outside he was doing some huge Shakas, air flakas and any other moves you care to mention. Everyone was pushing the limits, sailing until our fingers bled, and there were people falling out of the sky everywhere! The event winner was one of the other RRD riders from Italy who managed to windsurf solidly for two days and was the last to leave the party. There was some great feedback on this years RRD boards from people who tried out our gear and every other sail on the water was an Ezzy.

How to get there: Geraldton is situated 5 hrs north of Perth. The town itself is a reasonable sized with all the amenities you could want. There are 3 main windsurfing spots: ‘The lighthouse’ is situated just South of the town centre and is a flat water lagoon with a small wave on the outside. It is popular with kitesurfers mainly but an OK spot to windsurf if Coronations is too busy. It is best accessed by 4wd because you can park on the beach right next to the water. ‘Sunsets’ is located just north of the town centre and is the only real wave spot in Geraldton. The wave is fairly slow during the summer although if the swell is big then it can get quite good here. There is a nice campsite just next to the spot which has wireless internet and good facilities. ‘Coronations’ is the main reason to go to Geraldton. It is located about 30mins north of Geraldton. There is a basic campsite here with pit toilets but is perfectly adequate if you’re self-sufficient. The place itself is a lagoon with outer reef that holds a reasonable wave in the right conditions.

Equipment: During the summer this place has the windiest stats in WA and you can get away with a 4.7m only although you’re best off with a sail or two either side. There is good freestyle potential as well as good wave riding. If you are only here for a short time then this is the ideal place for a freewave board, or like me then the RRD 80lt wavecult is a great board for here. It has great waveriding and jumping abilities as well as being perfectly adequate at freestyle. This spot will suit the beginner right through to the advanced. It is great if your just getting into the waves as they’re gentle enough on the inside and you can progress to the bigger sets on the outside. Also if you're learning to jump, or do other aerial manouveres then you can progress quite fast here because the ramps are perfect and there is good space between waves so if you crash there is plenty of time to sort yourself out again.

Other things to do: Geraldton itself is quite a quiet town but there is a museum as well as some interesting buildings around Geraldton. There are some good surfing spots to the South of Geraldton and Sunsets can hold a good wave, mainly in the winter though. Being honest, it is not the best place to be when there is no wind as the rest of the attractions can be done in a day!

Kit is also sponsored by Edge Watersports in Exmouth www.edgewatersports.com

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