Our Staff
When you visit Kayaks Australia, you can rest assured that you will receive the very best advice about all things paddling.
We can guarantee this because on our team are people who have...
Paddling Experience (on the water)...
Some shops boast that they have "Qualified Instructors" to help you choose your craft, and whilst these people may well hold a piece of paper (and you also need to check that they have kept it current), many have limited "on-the-water" experience.
Denise, the owner of Kayaks Australia, grew up around canoes and kayaks and her family spent every Christmas, Easter and most other holidays camping on a river (usually the Murrumbidgee at Childowlah).
Having been in and on canoes and kayaks since before she could walk and having paddled white-water, flat water, sea kayaking, K2 sprint racing and canoe polo, Denise can honestly say that she has been paddling her whole life and has a broad range of "on-the-water" experience in a wide range of craft.
Knowledge of design and manufacturing processes...
Denise’s dad John and Uncle Dave are the designers and manufacturers of the Australis range of canoes and kayaks.
She has been exposed to the intricacies of watercraft performance and design, and spent her high school and university years working in the factory, cooking and fitting-out the canoes and kayaks.
This gives her the ability to accurately predict how a boat will paddle, just be looking at it.
Exercise and Rehabilitation Expertise...
Having completed a Bachelor of Science in Human Movement Science at the University of Wollongong, as well as being a Remedial Massage Therapist, Denise is uniquely qualified to advise and assist you in choosing and using your kayak, especially if you have a medical condition or any previous or current injuries.
We are aware of shops who boast that they can guarantee to get you into the right craft, just by talking with you, but... Even with all of the expertise that Denise possesses, she knows that there is no way that anyone can promise a 99.9% success rate in recommending the most suitable kayak.
Given anthropometry ("the measurement of the human individual for the purposes of understanding human physical variation" - source – Wikipedia), especially where a person carries their weight (because of body layout, men tend to carry their weight high and women tend to carry their weight lower), even if you get a man and woman who are exactly the same weight, or 2 men who are the same weight but different builds and heights (tall and lanky versus short and stocky), the kayak will paddle differently for both of them.
To give you the best chance possible to choose the craft that will be best for you, Kayaks Australia staff will:
- Ask you a series of questions to identify the type of boat that will be appropriate given your usage and price range
- Give you your options within those those parameters
- Offer you the opportunity to try on the water before you buy*, so that you know exactly how the kayak will paddle for you
* Please note:
Whilst we do have a wide range of "demonstration craft", we do not have a demonstrator of every model that we sell.
To find out which craft are available to try, check out the individual pages on this website, or give us a call on (02) 9531 7800.
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