high as a kite

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We were checking emails one evening and came across one from the Whangarei group on Couch Surfing. It was from an American girl asking if anyone wanted to join her competing in the Russell Birdman contest.

A couple of weeks before, I had seen an article in a paper (NZ Herald travel section?) about the festival and thought it would be a fun way to spend a Saturday. I hadn’t mentioned it to Colin as of course he would be playing football that day, and I try my best not to find us other things to do on a Saturday too often!

But it seemed like fate had dropped this group posting in our in-box. We decided that we’d reply and see what happened. The least we could do would be to offer a bed and whatever support we could during the building stage, even if one or both of us couldn’t make Russell on a Saturday for the jump.

So messages started flying back and forth on the Whangarei group forum and the Auckland one (Molly - the CSer who started this - had cross posted) and we found ourselves in this project up to our necks, along with Molly and another couple from Whangarei, Morgan and Aaron. Aaron also wanted to jump; Colin and I had made our excuses for avoiding leaping into Russell’s mid winter harbour, but were committed to helping the team.

We made plans for Molly to come up the weekend before the festival so we could design and build whatever she and Aaron were going to wear off the wharf. We met up with Aaron, Morgan and another couch surfer, Alex, they had staying with them at our place and threw a few ideas around, until coming up with something we all liked that could also be made quickly and easily. None of us had been involved before and really weren’t sure what to expect, or what was expected of us.

So what was our idea - giant kites. We thought we could build two people-sized kites and send Molly and Aaron soaring. We also needed to pick some music for them to jump to, and immediately came up with “Lets Go Fly a Kite”. What else?! So, what to build these kites from? We had an old curtain that was big enough for one kite, and Aaron and Morgan had another at their house. They also had access to some bamboo for the frame and a sewing machine. Logic dictated that we upped and moved to their house in town for the building stage. At this point Colin had to leave us. He’d said that he’d play football this weekend but would miss the following weekend for the festival.

The first kite took a couple of hours to make, by the time we had decided what we wanted to do and how we would get there. The second one was done in about 30 minutes! We measured the height of the kite to match the height of the jumper and the width to their arm width. We (well, Morgan) stitched ‘tubes’ up the centre and across the middle to take the bamboo poles Aaron and Alex had cut for us. Then it was just a matter of folding the sides down, cutting and hemming them, to give us our kite shapes.

While Morgan was sewing the first kite, Molly and I tried to find a decent rendition of ‘Lets Go Fly a Kite’. We weren’t having a lot of luck (Dick Van Dyke just wasn’t “funky” enough!) but did come across the Beatles song ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite’. Much better! If only we could have the words from the former in the style of the latter… This also led onto the name of the team - we had become ‘High as a Kite’.

The kites needed decorations of some kind so we all met up again the next day with whatever paint we could find. So far, apart from the entry fee, the project hadn’t cost us anything. We were doing a great job of recycling old bits and pieces. Sure, there was the power for the sewing machine and the thread it used, but we hadn’t actually gone out and bought anything, and were feeling pretty chuffed with ourselves.

Poor Molly, staying with a couple of football fans during the world cup. We got up just before 2am Saturday and Sunday morning to watch the semi finals. Bravely, Molly also got up, which was lucky as we all slept in later in the morning!

The good thing about painting the kites on the Sunday was that Colin could join in again. he was pretty impressed with what we had managed in a few hours on Saturday. Aaron and Morgan painted Aarons kite, and Colin, Molly and I painted Mollys. We had swirls and squiggles, lines and dots, flowers, stars and a fantastic caterpillar. We all signed our masterpieces, and left them in Aaron and Morgans garage for the week. All we needed to get sorted during the week was a tail for the kite.

The week passed as they do at the moment, work work work (and our first ante-natal class!), Friday night rolled round and Molly turned up with a couple of extra recruits - Cassie and Michael, both couch surfers. Friday night was spent hanging out and making a kite tail, and getting an early night ready for the big jump the following day.

We left home early for Russell and had a good run through, driving straight onto the ferry at Opua. We made it just before the boat races, but were too late for Molly and Cassie to sign up. It gave us chance to wander round, check out the ramp and pick up the entry number. A bag of goodies came with the entry, but despite entering as a team, we only got one t-shirt, one entry number, one bag of chips, one of this and one of that. We left the two jumping members of high as a kite to split the goodies between them.

Molly and Cassie also tried taking part in the spaghetti eating contest, but missed out in the adult section - Molly did look much younger dressed in her home made jumping mask. So we all had to go and buy lunch! Having had a few dinners with her, I doubt Molly would have beat the guy who won the adult section, he downed his bowl of spaghetti in about 30 seconds! I'm sure he inhaled the stuff!

We met up with Aaron and Morgan after lunch and put the finishing touches on the kites - they looked pretty good for something that only took a few hours to make and cost nothing. Aaron and Molly dressed in matching Northpower overalls and swooped their kites down the street to the safety briefing.

Finally it was time to find a spot on the beach and watch the Russell Birdman competition 2010. Many of the entrants were repeats, and had more of an idea of what was expected. We thought there would be more emphasis on the jump, but it seemed that all the focus was on the performance leading up to the ramp, and the jump was just the only way back to the beach. So there was plenty of dancing and play acting along the wharf, and little in the way of attempts to fly. Most people dumped parts of their costumes and just jumped off the ramp. Our team was a little opposite, and had minimal dancing down the wharf but made a good attempt at flying off the end - or what flying you can do with a human sized kite made of old curtains and bamboo! Still, for a first time effort, we are all very proud of ourselves and especially of Aaron and Molly.

Thanks to all the team for two fun filled weekends, we really enjoyed ourselves and we hope you did too.

Thanks also to Molly for the building weekend pics and the video. Please give the video chance to appear on the blog - I'll check back later to make sure all is ok.

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Comments

[Mel]

Fantastic!
Wow, what a great time! Good work and great imagination; thanks for sharing. (Great ad for Couchsurfing too!)

[Annette Owens]

Really neat kites!!!
Hey Karen and Colin, what a weekend - the pics were grand. I can't believe the kites made, just awesome.