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With the recent rise in the value of the Australian dollar relative the USD & GBP, I was hoping the cost of kites in Aus would fall also. It appears they haven't in the last few months. Follows is a list of several kite prices in Aus for comparison with what others pay globally.

Prices for the Naish, North and Slingshot (in Aus$) ranged from between $2100 to $2500. This equates to roughly $1400 to $1650US, 1170 to 1400 Euro or 800 to 1000 GBP.

For info, the range of prices obtained from 3 different shops included (in order of cheapest to most expensive) Naish Aero2 (16), North Toro2 (16), CabrinhaBT, North Rhino2, X3(16) and Slingshot Fuel(15 & 17).

The average cost of a brand name board is $1200 Aus (approx $800US, 670 Euro, or 480GBP).

Also, the average Australian earns about $600 a week after taxes (an educated guess), therefore making kiting an expensive sport over here. How does this compare with the rest of the world??? Would we be better to buy our gear overseas if at all possible?

Just returned from NZ. Prices in NZ are on the whole fairly similar if you ring around and chase the best deal up. Where you can win is that $1 Aus equates to about $1.12 NZ meaning you can get a real saving of about 10% over what you pay in Aus. You could also get a refund of the GST when leaving the country if you were over there and chose to do your shopping.

With regards to wages, spent over 2 months worth of income solely on kiting gear in the past 12 months. No wonder the mortgage ain't getting any smaller.

Kites are relatively cheap here as the importers are the distributors, low import duties and no sales tax. Naish and Cabrinha are the most expensive with a 20m kite complete costing $950 (X3 or BT), all other brands are cheaper.

yeh in the uk you are looking at £400-550 for a board.
and between £600-1200 for a quality kite dependant on size.

britain has always been looked upon as !"treasure island " by the europeans as we area total bunch of dumb asses who will pay for anything.

nice to see that a couple of manufacturers/importers try to keep their prices flat worldwide.