In Australia we love our water in fact we are surrounded by it, but I’m not just talking about the ocean. I’m referring to all forms of water holes that includes dams, lakes, creeks, and rivers. If there’s a body of water, you can bet us Aussies are going to play in it. That is why water sports is such a popular activity here in the land down OZ.

I personally have grown up in an extremely water sports driven house hold, from as young as I can possible remember we have owned a boat. One of my best memories as a child is the feeling myself and my two brothers use to get when we would walk out the school gate and their way in the back of the school pick up line were our parents towing the boat fully packed ready to go on our next water sports adventure.  My parents we’re also a little bit cheeky my father owning his own business would often take a Friday off spend the morning packing the boat with my mother and then pull us out of school half way through the day. We spent nearly every weekend doing water sports activities. Our most frequent spot to visit if we were staying for the whole weekend was Somerset Dam. They had great camping facilities and the dam is huge. My elder brother myself and my Dad would often wake up extremely early to get the best water go for a barefoot and then head back to bed. We were quite die-hard into the serious water sports activities such as barefooting, water skiing and wakeboarding. In saying that though there was not a time that went by when we got the boat out without having a crack on our Tow Tube. They are absolutely endless amounts of fun, Tow Tubes are so versatile. Tow Tubes easily cater to the extreme adrenaline junkies that love nothing more than battling it out on the water. However, what truly makes them great is they also are perfect for those people who are either to old, young, injured or unconfident to do other water sports. As especially with a quality Tow Tube they can still be loads of fun cruising behind the boat and just experiencing the feeling of riding the water.

If we weren’t going on a weekend trip, then our most frequent spot to visit was in fact the Brisbane River. As kids our family would spend many of Sundays in the boat on the Brisbane River. However, we weren’t always limited to water sports behind the boat. Sometimes on the Brisbane River we would crack out the kayaks and go for a cruise. My elder brother and myself each had our own kayak, so competitions were inevitable. We would love racing our kayaks completely adhering to the saying rubbing is racing. Our racing antics more closely resembled a game of bumper cars than a drag race. Another great game and tactic we use to employee whilst racing was trying to tip the other person from their kayak. We would use one of our ores to push one side of the kayak down filling the vessel with water. Sometimes however if the opportunity arrived, we would corner the other forcing them to go sailing into the bank or a tree branch. We had endless amounts of brotherly fun with our kayaks. It was not always brother vs brother, my younger brother was too young to go by himself so my Dad bought a double kayak. The game was truly on then, my little brother would sit up front as skipper as my Dad furiously paddled away. They were much slower due to my brother’s lack of paddling and added weight but went it came to bumping, boy oh boy was the double kayak effective then.  On one of our kayak trips my Dad secretly purchased an electric trolling motor. The cheeky bugger installed it onto his double kayak but completely hid the motor with his backpack and gear he had on the back. Electric trolling motors are designed to be relatively silent in order not to scare away the fish you are looking to catch. So, this was perfect for Dad’s plan, he kept pretending to paddle but suddenly came speeding passed us. All day we were trying to catch him in our double kayak, but little did we know we were no match for his secret electric trolling motor.

Now whilst us boys were having kayak battles and races, what was our Mum doing you might ask. As you might of guess our Mother whilst accepting of it, wasn’t overly keen to join in the kayak battles and races. So, while we were busy with our boisterous activities she was calmly and peacefully cruising down the Brisbane River on her standup paddleboard. Our mum loved cracking out the SUP for a few reasons. As anyone who has used one will tell you a standup paddleboard is an extremely good core workout and thus an excellent non impactful way to keep fit and injury free. Another reason is there’s something incredibly peaceful about using a SUP, something about just being out in nature slowly cruising down the river lets all your thoughts drift away and allows you to truly enjoy the moment.  Lastly her favorite and most motherly reason for using the standup paddleboard was to keep watch of us boys. As you might have picked up from the name, when using a SUP you are in fact standing up. So, our mother would essentially stand watch as she cruised on her standup paddleboard alike a mobile life guard.

I hope this short story has given you an insight into the fun water sports can bring you and your entire family. Raising your kids around family orientated activities not only creates a memorable childhood for them, but also creates incredibly strong bonds between siblings. Furthermore, it also creates great bonds between parents and their children. So, I would highly recommend getting into water sports fun with your family.