Victoria's Parks have a wide range of waterways ideal for canoeing, kayaking and white water rafting.
To find out about these activities in a specific park select the park page from the list above.

Here are a few suggestions of places to paddle close to Melbourne:

Albert Park. Located just 3km from the Melbourne CBD you can hire a canoe or a wide variety of watercrafts in beautiful surroundings on Albert Park Lake. The Jolly Roger school of Sailing provides boat and aquabike hire for casual sailors, rowers and canoeists. See the Albert Park page for more details.

Yarra Bend Park. Rent row boats, canoes and kayaks from historic Studley Park Boathouse, Kew, the oldest operating boathouse in Australia. Only 10 minutes from the city centre the boathouse also offers visitors the opportunity to dine in the restaurant, relax over a lighter meal in the indoor/outdoor café, or have a light snack from the kiosk while enjoying sweeping views of the Yarra River and natural bushland.

Lysterfield and Westerfolds parks are also good spots to try canoeing close to Melbourne.

Great destinations a little further afield include Murray River Reserves, the Barmah State Park and the Lower Glenelg National Park.

For those with a real taste for adventure, tour operators run white water rafting and canoeing at parks such as Mitchell River, Mount Buffalo, Alpine and Snowy River National Parks to name just a few. On the park pages of these parks you will find links to adventure tourism companies who offer rafting trips ranging in difficulty and duration; from a few intense hours to several days with camping included.