Our Courses
*
Our Courses *
Our Fundamentals Course
In order to be both safe and competent on whitewater we highly recommend that everyone undertakes our Fundamentals Course. It is normally 3-days and held on the Derwent River, just outside of Hobart. This course starts with basic river rescue skills such as swimming, throwbagging and assisted/self-rescues. It then proceeds to provide paddlers with a super solid basis of technical strokes including significant time on the highly important technique of forward paddling. Participants will learn the basics of navigating whitewater and techniques that will set them up to carve into the future.
Our Intermediate Course
Our standard intermediate course provides paddlers with an excellent understanding of how to competently enter and exit eddies. The ability to catch any eddy is a game changer. This course focuses on reading the water, learning how to make use of currents, water features, the correct strokes and boat design in order to be able to carve both into and out of eddies as well as across fast currents.
High Intermediate Course
Our high intermediate course is usually held on fast flowing grade 2+ whitewater such as on the Mersey Whitewater Course or the Mitta Mitta River. The focus is on being able to navigate more complex rapids and the ability to catch and make use of mid-stream and micro-eddies. Participants also start to learn to use sweep boofs which is starts to change the way we paddle whitewater. This course is for those who are wishing to advance their skills and work towards paddling grade 3/3+ confidently, consistently and safely. It focuses on increasing paddler's boat control and technical paddling ability. It is designed for those who are already paddling grade 3 (or at least solid 2+) but who wish to become more technically competent.
Advanced Technical Strokes Course
This course sees us working with you to fine tune your strokes, body & boat positions and edging in order to make better use of water features. We spend 2-days doing hard moves on easy whitewater. The aim is for paddlers to consistently nail manoeuvres such as carving into and out of eddies, S-turns and S-crosses as well as a variety of boofing techniques (sweep, cross-current & conventional).
Participants need to have undertaken at least a high intermediate course with the instructors previously or else provide evidence to show that they are at the required level to attend.
Advanced River Running
This is our classic advanced packrafting course that we have been running for over ten years. The aim is to challenge participants through tackling steeper, harder and larger rapids and journeying through some intense river sections. The course provides paddlers with the opportunity to put into practice all the fundamental and complex skills that they have learned on previous courses.
Please note that we cannot guarantee what rivers we will be able to paddle as our steeper, harder rivers are all natural flow. This means that they can often be too high or too low.
Franklin River - Advanced River Running & Group Management (9-days)
January 2027 - Packrafting Tasmania now has a licence from Parks & Wildlife to deliver a 9-day river running course that sees participants tackling the mighty, world-heritage status, Franklin River. This journey is world-renowned and has been called one of the top 10 multi-day rafting trips in the world. The trip starts at the Collingwood River Bridge on the Lyell Hwy and finishes on the Gordon River. The river includes numerous challenging sections and portages. Learn the skills to negotiate such challenges safely and competently. Join Advanced Whitewater Instructor Dan Hall, who has guided the Franklin over 70 times, on this incredible journey. Participants need to have undertaken previous training with Packrafting Tasmania in order to be deemed suitable for this trip.
Course Dates
To see when the above courses are running please click on the LEARN MORE buttons above. You can also click the link below to see all of our current course offerings.
If you do not find any course dates suitable, get in touch with us and we will see what we can do to help.
