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Enthusiastic skiers, runners, swimmers and paddlers took to Wallis Lake over the two days with a range of events catering for everyone from first-time paddlers to aquatic professionals.

Competitors from as far abroad as Queensland, Victoria and Canberra travelled to take part in what was a successful festival following up from the inaugural event in 2015.    

Competitors were ably supported by family and friends, with the large amount of travellers providing a “big time” economic bonus to the Great Lakes area, event director Peter Camilleri said.

Peter also described the weather as a “win”, with overcast and windy conditions on the Saturday not impacting any of the races before clearing on the Sunday.  The event appears here to stay, with Peter saying there was the possibility of expanding from just a paddle-boarding based festival. 

“There’s so many things we can do to build on this,” Peter said.

He suggested that a cheese and wine festival or an ocean swim were all avenues that could be explored to coincide with the festival.

Kicking off on Saturday February 6, the first day of the event involved the Forster Island Challenge, a 12km and 6km ski paddle, a 200m dash for cash and the battle of the paddle.

Later that night the Lakes and Ocean Hotel hosted a charity auction, where pro competitors were auctioned off to teams competing in the Sunday charity relay, with key festival sponsor LJ Hooker helping raise $2300 for their nominated cystic fibrosis charity.

Businesses that put forward teams participating in the charity race included LJ Hooker, Jungle Surf, Club Surf and Sydney’s Channel Seven.

Sunday saw 10km, 5km and 2km paddle-boarding races, as well as a kid’s 200m and the charity relay challenge, ensuring there was an event suitable for every level of water-bound athlete.  

Peter thanked Great Lakes Tourism, sponsors and event volunteers for their involvement.

“Without them it wouldn’t have been possible,” he said.