Mavora Kayaks

We were woken early one cold morning on the weekend by a lot of shouting which was kind of strange considering we hadn't seen many people for a few days. When I opened the door (thankfully in my dressing gown) I was surprised to find a whole heap of people waving at me as they paddled by in kayaks! The shouting was coming from instructors who had a group of five or six people each; there were about ten groups & they were getting them to do a barrel roll as the paddled down the lake, making sure they could right themselves afterwards. Some were very reluctant to do it & I don't blame them as it was freezing cold.

I knew it wasn't the school camp as they had left before the snow arrived so I dressed and wandered down to the end of the lake where they were congregating before disappearing down the river. From the conversations I heard they appeared to be foreign students & when I saw a couple of their transport vehicles it looked like they had come from a education institute.

The river that joins the lakes isn't too long, is quite slow flowing, shallow & wide at the top but then narrows with a few rapids in the middle followed by a fast flowing section before it empties into a wide delta at the north end of the south lake. An easy grade for beginners to learn on.

I followed a couple of groups down the river to where I could hear more shouting, laughing & some big splashes followed by cheering to find that some of the braver ones were dragging their kayaks up to the top of a stony bank, climbing in and riding the kayak down the slope to land with a big splash in the river.

An instructor was near the bottom shouting instructions "lean forward, hold your paddle up and keep you shoulders high, now GO!"

Some didn't quite keep on track and landed awkwardly in the river but they all popped up straight away laughing and whooping. Most paddled straight back over to the edge and hauled themselves up the bank again.

As each group left to continue on down the river the next group arrived to try their hand at "gravel surfing"

And the following weekend it all happened again, I'm not sure if they were the same students but it was the same shouting!