Letter from Falling Creek Camp leader

12 young whitewater kayakers from the US paddle the Magpie

Photos provided by Jez from Explore Expeditions and Falling Creek Camp

Dear Boreal,

I wanted to take a moment to briefly email you guys about our experience. I apologize it has taken so long for this email to get to you, I have been busy back in Australia at work.

Firstly I have to admit we were very nervous about the trip, there are so many working parts to a trip such as this and we really had some reservations about how things would come together up there. These reservations were squashed when we met your guides at the campsite, they made us feel welcome and showed that they had everything organized and ready to go. The pre-departure trip discussion was key and we all got on the same page for the expedition.

Heading out to the river we were so excited to get on the plane and we appreciated that we could never have organized everything that goes along with this expedition ourselves. Meeting the rafts that were already on the lake showed that you guys spend quite a bit of time to make logistics an important factor of your trips. We ourselves find ourselves going through numerous logistic issues in the southeast as every river trip that we do involves getting all our gear and kids to numerous rivers, on average 3-4 different river trips per day so we totally understand the preparation and logistic concerns that are associated with a trip such as this.

Now onto your staff. To be honest I was totally blown away by the professionalism and dedication to the expedition by these two. You could not find two harder working guides who took the time to get to know the kids individually. This interaction was what I would describe as very appropriate to our group, when kids needed to know they had to help out they were not afraid to say so. In terms of how hard these two worked, I would normally get off the river and help move the gear and such around however I found myself completely exhausted at the end of the instruction on the water, I believe this was also from my back to back camps and driving up to Canada might have had something to do with it also. I often found myself just sitting, totally drained and watching the guides continue to work getting dinner ready, clean up and in the mornings they were the first ones up getting breakfast ready. I was just blown away by how hard these two worked, they kept helping the team and working harder than I have seen any guide. A true credit to your program. A great factor that we found of benefit was the rescue instruction skills that the two had, obviously they are part of your rescue instructors and we decided to add a bit of instruction into some of the days which the kids got a great benefit from.

Coming down to the final flat-water section, I was amazed that you had helicoptered two canoes to be ready and awaiting for the expedition and you also left the two rafts ready to be choppered. Again a true sign of your fantastic logistics coordination, something that blew me away.

Lastly I wanted to personally thank you, I know it is just you going about your job and providing the appropriate customer service that you always would do, however your guides were by far some of the best guides I have come across. Please personally thank them from me as well as on behalf of Falling Creek Camp. As a result of this trip we will surely continue to have the Magpie expedition as one of our highlights of our Huck program.

Talk to you soon mate. Kind regards,
Jez