Stand Up Paddle Boarding in Canberra.

Have you tried stand up paddle boarding yet? Our good friend Matt over at SUP’ing Caveman took us out for a little paddle a few weeks back and we loved every minute! Oh and SUP = Stand Up Paddle board! This took us a few minutes to realise.

Not only an awesome total body workout, stand up paddle boarding is super fun! We never thought we’d be able to paddle board in Canberra (no beach) but you can! We have a pretty lake called Lake Burley Griffin, there’s this place called Molonglo Reach (connected to the lake) and that’s where we SUP’ed.

When we got there we were told we had to jump in the water. We didn’t really like this idea as growing up in Canberra there was always (like seriously always) reports of blue green algae as well as water rats (eek!). Swimming in the lake was like a massive no no. Matt told us to toughen up and then we also realised we were being little princesses, so we jumped in.

Matt’s reasoning behind jumping in first makes complete sense: jump in the water then we won’t be scared of falling in! He’s a smart caveman.

We spent about 2 hours on the water, practising turning, walking up and down the board and jumping on the board. Matt would show us the moves, then it was our turn to try it out. This is how it went down…

Carla would go gun ho, completely mess up the move and fall in. Emma (being the over analyser she is) would think about it for a couple minutes (definitely too long) but do it without falling in. As you can imagine there was a lot of laughs on the lake!

So stand up paddle boarding is fun and a great workout but it’s also really relaxing. There is certainly something special about being around water. Living in Canberra we spend less time around water than we’d like. We sure can see how SUP’ing can be used as a meditation session and understand the Yoga SUP’ing craze! We want to try it!

Have you tried SUP’ing before, do you do it regularly? We’d love to hear about it! If you live in Canberra and want to give it a go… Matt has some awesome plans up his sleeve so go and like his facebook page to get the latest SUP’ing updates!

Another interesting fact about our friend Matt is that he can cook! He can cook gooooood! We visited the cave family for dinner the other night and were treated to his famous stuffed bird. OH. MY. FOOD. It was delicious and we highly recommend checking this recipe out, just click here!

Always merrymaking,

e + c

Here’s some photos to laugh at…


stand up paddle boaring canberra2 stand up paddle boaring canberra3

stand up paddle boarding canberra stand up paddle boaring canberra6

Scroll to Top