Spoons

We are in Murchison and I am taking a five day kid’s course.  I am two days into it and am having a blast.  I had some reservations about the kids but they are friendly and all in all a good group.  Today, we had two runs down the Mangles River, a helpful pool session, and games of cards in the evening. 

Today started with a quick session in the pool.  This was fun and I worked on perfecting my hand roll and my sweep roll.  I briefly tried the back deck roll, where the kayaker leans back in the boat and rolls up with the paddle and hips.  Matt, an instructor, filmed all of our rolls and  tomorrow we will watch them to help fine-tune our technique.  We also played a round of kayak polo.  This is exactly like water polo, except in a kayak.  Two teams are formed and each team tries to throw the ball through the opposing team’s goal.  After the session, we were all pleased to see that the sun had come out.   We quickly drove back to the lodge to dry our gear in the sun and to rest before running the Mangles River.

Today, we paddled the Mangles River twice.  Even though my hand roll is good, I seemed to by having trouble with my sweep roll (my paddle roll.)  It was sloppy and not working correctly.  Several times, I had to be rolled back up by an instructor.  I even had one swim on the first run.  Even with my roll problems, I still had fun surfing with Liam in holes and big waves.  I had a good day on the river but not a super energetic one.  I returned home tired and a little sun burned.

Back at the lodge there was still some fun to be had.  I played cards with some of the kids in my class.  We played spoons, a more aggressive card game than most.  The first person to get a set of four grabs a spoon.  There is one less spoon then the numbers of players.  The remaining players all fight for the left over spoons.  Friendly fights, screams, and laughter all piled into one card game.  Soon I was called away to write my blog. 

Liam

Liam

 Danielle, Liam, and me (Photo by Mom)

Shae

Today was full of rolls in the pool, fun on the river, and boisterous card games. We are all headed to bed for a good night's sleep to rest up for another day of kayaking!

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