THE INLAND KITESURFING CLUB

INTRO

 Welcome to the inland kitesurfing club page. Please take your time to read through this page and at the end we hope you understand the need and the importance of the club.

The Inland kitesurfing club was founded by inland kitesurfing in February 2009.  We saw the importance of a kitesurfing club as we as kiter’s have lost wonderful kiting spots in the past and did not want to loose any more. The sport itself is also growing at a fantastic rate inland and if we didn’t do something we stood a good chance too keep loosing kiting spots. Leaving Inland kiter’s no where to kite Inland.

There are many public spots around our local dams where one can easily gain access to the water but as our sport is dependent on wind and the right wind direction we as kiter’s can not just kite at any public area around the local dams and with most of these areas been filled with campers, trees and fisherman makes it extremely dangerous for any kitesurfer and non kitesurfer.

So this means that we needed to find a dam that gets good wind in the right direction and is safe for us as kitesurfers. We also wanted a dam that was not to far from Johannesburg and Pretoria so we can go through for the day and kite. Before 90% of kiting was done on a dam in the Drakensburg called Sterkfontain dam, this is also one of the few public dams around where one can practice the sport of kitesurfing in a safe environment as the kiting spot has all the ingredients what us as kiter’s are looking for, but this dam is impractical for many kiter’s and for a days trip as its over 300km away!

In 2008 we set out to find a dam that had good wind was close to Johannesburg and Pretoria was safe for all kiter’s and sat in the wind belt.
In Gauteng we have a wind belt that starts at Witbank and runs through to the Vaal dam. So ideally we needed a dam that was in the middle of this wind belt to get the best type of wind. After searching a dam was found about 100km from JHB called Leewpan! This dam is ideally situated in the middle of this wind belt so it gets very good wind on a regular basis.

Leewpan dam is on private property so we first approached the farmer before kiting explained the sport, how it works and what has happened in the past at other dams. The farmer has agreed to allow access to club members to use his property and the dam. The farmer has also given us a dedicated kite spot for us to rig and kite.  Leewpan is easily accessible with good wind, has a great rigging area and the water area if free from stones and rocks which is ideal for anyone. There where a few request by the farmer. These request where nothing serious just a few rules as it is a working farm. Please familiarize yourself with the club rules.

Our Club Spots are:
1.    Leewpan dam.
2.    Witbank dam (Wayne Erasmus property).