Toddlers, Ducks And Farmers

What do Toddlers, ducks and farmers have in common? They love rain! The past two years were incredibly wet, thanks to our friend, La Nina. An awful time for us and our kayakers, due to endless rain and southerly winds. I think most people see this as being an opportunity for time off in our business, but sadly, it’s the opposite. When we have people booked in for kayak tours each day and every forecast is suggesting bad weather, that means a lot of time in the office for us, rescheduling, refunding and making tough calls on the ever-changing Sydney weather.  

 

For those of you who know us, you’ll know we strive to offer an exceptional experience to everyone. From the initial correspondence with us, right through until after the kayak tour and beyond. Amazing customer service (and safety, of course) are our number one priorities, so if someone wants to cancel because the weather doesn’t look good, we will happily offer a refund or reschedule.

This is always a tough call, and sometimes we get it wrong, resulting in a beautiful morning after cancelling, or on the other hand, getting caught out in the rain after making the call to go ahead. We’re not perfect and neither are the weather reports sometimes, but we do what we can to manage everyone’s expectations. If it looks like possible rain, we’ll recommend a raincoat or offer a refund or reschedule.

Some of our best paddles have been in the rain. We often see incredible rainbows and interesting cloud formations, which make for amazing photos! We understand its not for everyone, though. This is why we are flexible on days like these. Weather like this also opens up opportunities for our Responsible Paddlers. Heavy rain and southerly winds invariably mean lots of rubbish in the harbour. Our Responsible Clean-up Paddlers, although they love a good sunrise, aren’t on the water for this purpose, so we can still get out there if its safe to do so, collecting all the trash that ends up in Lavender Bay.

 

On the plus side, our kids, little Levi and baby Isla, LOVE the rain! They especially love the puddles that it leaves on the ground. I’m not sure if it’s good parenting or bad parenting, but we love taking their shoes and socks off and letting them jump around in the puddles (they don’t seem to like welly boots). If you asked our son for the best thing to do in Sydney on a rainy day? He’d be quite happy just jumping in a puddle.. all day!

 

During last year, we also thought about our farmers. They suffer a lot with drought and although we were suffering a little, we knew that our farmers were appreciating the rain.

This leaves us with the ducks. Well, what duck doesn’t love the rain!? Whenever I felt down about how the start of the season was going or if I felt sad after making yet another wet-weather call on a Sunrise Kayak tour, subsequently letting a group of people down, I’d sit for a minute and think of the ducks, toddlers and farmers, who were loving the rain, and it would bring a little smile to my face.

 

We’ve now just had the driest start to a winter in decades! More mornings like these, please, weather-gods!

 

One happy, dry paddler,

Laura