What The Fock?
The integral Festival of the Canoe and Kayak held in Kangaroo Valley on the weekend of 17–20 June was the creative brainchild of local business owner Travis Frenay and Dylan Jones. The FOCK aims to be a celebration of recreational paddling in Australia. More importantly it is a way to showcase all our amazing adventure companies, local businesses and producers and share with visitors and locals the very best the valley has to offer.
The festival launched on Friday 17 June at Wildwood, on the banks of the Kangaroo River at Bendeela. Attendees were privileged to be welcomed to Dharawal Country Gangurang, Kangaroo Valley by Gadhungal Murring. Visitors were invited to participate in the smoking ceremony and to acknowledge the Wodi Wodi of the Dharawal people as the traditional custodians of land on which we live and explore. This was a wonderful experience for everyone, the stories told of the area, and the creation stories of the rosella and black cockatoo were especially captivating.
Gadhungal Murring is a local Aboriginal business that strongly believes in culture upfront. Their willingness to share and connect with us all was moving. The encouragement to find our similarities with each other, rather than our difference, was inspiring advice. I encourage all locals to attend one of Gadhungal Murring’s upcoming events.
After a delicious hot cup of soup and fresh baked bread from local food guru Caterina, attendees enjoyed the screening and Q & A with makers of the film selected for the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, Eden Canoes. The documentary follows a community project created to empower Aboriginal Youth from Eden Marine High School through a canoe building project. The ground-breaking Eden Canoes Indigenous youth program is a culturally safe place, allowing participants to be themselves in the present as they respect and honour their long and enduring traditions. The film shows the students’ practical experience building a vessel from scratch with their own two hands. Through the film the students thrive through the creation of healthy community connections. This film is more than simply building a canoe. Not only do participants build boats, they also explore relationships with others and have the opportunity to use the boat and explore the local environment and their heritage.
Saturday afternoon delivered a glorious winter’s setting on Kangaroo River. Fockers experienced the southern hemisphere’s largest range of recreational canoes, test driving (paddling) everything from 3 to 30 foot long boats. Families enjoyed the canoe and kayak-based scavenger hunt through the waterways. The standout event by far was the Black Tie sunset paddle. Fockers, dressed in formal attire, boarded their canoes with picnic baskets and eskies, helped along by a maître d’ in a canoe! A gorgeous orange sunset on Kangaroo River was enjoyed by all, a wonderful reminder that our beautiful waterways can be enjoyed year-round. Sunday was a flurry of events, including a world record attempt of canoes in a line on the water, canoe painting, a floating music stage and game of canoe polo. The highlight event of the Sunday was the corroboree with Gadhungal Murring. There was sunshine, there was music and there was dancing, it was amazing, educational and fun all in one.
The Fock is an amazing addition to the Kangaroo Valley calendar and many of us are already counting down the days until The Fock 2023.
Natalie Harker