Author Topic: River trip for beginner?  (Read 9004 times)

Offline poonprice

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River trip for beginner?
« on: July 07, 2016, 07:53:10 AM »
Hi All,

I Recently brought a secondhand Kayak for a bit of a taster to see if I enjoy time out on the water as i'm usually on two wheels. Its a Riot Kayak Quest 10. I've been out on LBG and Googong dam a few times but would like to broaden my horizons and maybe do a river section.

Looking for recommendations for this weekend, ideally within Canberra region and with a paddle time of 2hrs or so. I appreciate with recent rainfalls, some of the rivers are high and may not be good for a beginner, but also thinking some sections might be passable with higher levels that normally aren't. Would be good to include some basic rapids if possible and fairly safe?

I would be Kayaking with a mate and we both have the same Kayak and experience.

Look forward to your suggestions
Cheers
Matt

Offline Griff

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Re: River trip for beginner?
« Reply #1 on: July 07, 2016, 07:31:21 PM »
Matt

Welcome to the Canberra White Water community.  Whilst there is good water at the moment and some grade two runs that you could do, when you first start out white water paddling you need to be prepared to spend a fair bit of time out of your boat.  This is not a whole lot of fun in Canberra in the middle of winter!  You may want to wait for spring to start getting into it.  In the mean time yo0u may want to have a look at the FB Canberra Kayak site / group.  It is the forum/  mechanism that has the majority of discussion now.

Offline poonprice

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Re: River trip for beginner?
« Reply #2 on: July 07, 2016, 08:06:52 PM »
Thanks for the reply Griff.

When you say spend time out of the Kayak, is that purely because you generally spend time out of the kayak assessing the river/rapids for safety and your route through?

Is the Quest 10 suitable for small rapids, it's obviously not as small and nimble as whitewater kayaks.

Will check out the Facebook group.

Cheers
Matt

Offline goofy

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Re: River trip for beginner?
« Reply #3 on: July 07, 2016, 09:54:24 PM »
Matt

I think Grif means you spend a bit of time practicing wet exits, usually from an upside down position in your kayak and in the cold water as opposed to pulling up on a bank and checking out the river.

Have fun
Geoff

Offline uwhnick

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Re: River trip for beginner?
« Reply #4 on: July 13, 2016, 10:56:30 AM »
I think these Quest 10 things are sit-on-tops?  So not such a big deal with wet-exits because you'll just fall off and then climb back on presumably.  As long as you've got a good wetsuit, I reckon go nuts.  The water is about 5 degrees in the murrumbidgee at the moment, so you'd want to get out of it pretty quickly if you fall in.  Also, keep away from trees and keep you feet up when swimming.  A decent first trip might be tharwa bridge to point hut crossing, which has some class I rapids.

Have fun.