Cooloola Dragon Boat Clubbies trek in Nepal

by Gayle Barnett

During the past month or so, the Cooloola Dragon Boat Club, (based at Tin Can Bay), has been on a ‘recruitment’ drive in a bid to boost its membership. As Dragon Boating is a big-team sport (22 people making up one complete crew), the term, ‘the more the merrier’ certainly applies!

A recent display held at Gympie attracted some interest and we plan to repeat the promotional drive in the Rainbow Beach area in the near future…. So watch out for us and feel free to come and have a chat with any of our friendly members who are always willing to ‘spread the word’.

We currently have a number of new paddlers on board and training sessions are geared towards instructing them in the basics of the paddling technique. So, if you have ever thought of ‘giving it a go’, then now is a perfect time to come and have a try!

Even though they had been busy ‘recruiting’, some CDBC paddlers found time to attend a regatta at Kawana Waters on the Sunshine Coast. Due to the fact that a number of their team mates, (including the coach!) were off trekking in Nepal, the Cooloola paddlers joined forces with some dragon boaters from Hervey Bay and Bundaberg. The event saw the strongest teams from south east Queensland in attendance. Although not victorious on the day, the composite crew paddled well to represent our Cooloola and Wide Bay regions.

Thankfully, we five trekkers have returned from our adventure, safe and sound and with many stories to tell. The trek itself was quite challenging, with rugged terrain and fairly high altitudes (4000+ metres) to test us physically….. but we’d all agree that the ‘walk’ was worth it, for those spectacular views!!

I doubt that we could have reached such amazing places without the invaluable assistance of our wonderful and friendly Nepali guides and porters, who were very interested to hear about dragon boating in Tin Can Bay..(we could certainly use some of them in the boat!?)… and we took every opportunity to proudly display our club flag along the way.

I’m sure each one of us felt a wonderful sense of achievement at having completed the 21 day trek, but it is nice to be home and back on the water again…. Hope to see you there too!

We are currently training Thursdays (arrive 3.30 for 4pm on the water) and Sundays (7.30 for 8am).

*Please note that CDBC will be having a short Christmas break : Last paddle Sunday 21^st December – resuming on Thursday 8^th January Enquiries Sandra (54862695) or Gayle (54862929)