TimA, Jezz and families visited the annual Hunstanton Kite Festival, which this year was held on 15^th August and set in the playing fields of a school. Much like the Royston festival, Hunstanton is a family-orientated affair with a central arena surrounded by the usual collection of trade stands (notably Windseekers), charity fund-raising stalls and bouncy castles. As a bonus there was also an on-site classic car show. 

We didn’t stay long enough to see all the arena demonstrations, but we did see some excellent synchronised team stunt-kite flying, a man-lift and the impressive feat of one person flying two kites in formation simultaneously.

 We didn’t take part in the controlled chaos of the ‘make your own kite’ stall, but Josh and Lydia took part in the sack race and received a free kite for their efforts from one of the sponsors. However I think the kids enjoyed the ‘funny bikes’ stand the most – a guy who makes weird bicycles for you to try, along with stilts, plate-spinning and juggling.

 Unlike Royston festival this year there was actually some wind at Hunstanton, although again unlike Royston you don’t get that much space to fly your own kites and there certainly wasn’t enough room for traction activities. However they do have one obvious and fairly major advantage – the presence of a number of large beaches a few minutes away. So inevitably after an hour or so we hastily repaired to one of these to make the most of the rest of the afternoon with some serious flying before the tide came in.