Blackwood River Houseboats

BLACKWOOD RIVER HOUSEBOATS HOLIDAY – BOATING, FISHING, SWIMMING, CANOEING, SUP BOARDING…. what more could you ask for?

Blackwood River Houseboats is based in the beautiful South West in the Margaret River region. We booked a 4 night stay with a group of family friends and had the best time ever. We created so many fun memories during our 4 days cruising up and down the Blackwood River, so much so we’re looking to book again and make it an annual trip.

On arrival, we’re given training and vital information on how to work the boat, where we can go and also how to moor the boats overnight. We then start to load the boats with our food and clothing for the weekend.

We booked and hired some canoes and SUP boards for our weekend trip which we loaded onto the top decking for the journey.

Before long we were loaded up and raced out of the dock on our adventure. Each boat comes with a small motorboat for taking trips to the river banks and to other boats if you’re travelling in a group.

With the boys happy playing skipper it was time for the Mums to relax.

NO SKIPPER LICENCE NEEDED!

We trained the kids early on to help keep the skipper happy

The boats each have a walkie talkie which we used to talk to each other, this proved a big novelty for the kids to use to talk utter rubbish to each other all day long.

There are 4 houseboats to choose from, named after the local owner’s children. All boats have top decks with shade, a fully equipped galley kitchen, toilet, heated shower, cabin heating, 100% cotton Sheridan sheets, beach towels, bow & stern decks, BBQ and fish scaling station. They have an 8 berth, 6 berth, 4 birth and 2 birth, check their website for the configurations as the smaller boats have fold-out sofa beds and no doors to the bedrooms so choose one that suits your set-up best.

DOUBLE BEDROOM IN THE RIVER 4-BERTH BOAT

KIDS BUNK BEDS ON THE RIVER BOAT

There’s plenty of storage areas under seats and benches to store your things. We took board games, card games, crafting, books etc.. for the kids to enjoy whilst we were sailing up and down the river. Although they did rather enjoy just looking out for wildlife in and out of the water.

Binoculars proved a great idea for the kids to spot wildlife and each other from the boats.

You can’t beat this view when you’re doing the washing up!

We used the BBQ on the back of the boat for our evening meals, the boats come with an oven, microwave and gas hob.

The biggest hit of the weekend for the kids was by far the canoes and SUP boards. They loved the face they could just go and visit another boat by getting in their canoe or on their SUP board. They spent most of our moored time flitting from one boat to the other and also exploring the river banks.

SUP BOARDING FUN!

We even took our own inflatable rings so the kids to paddle from one boat to another.

Half way down the Blackwood River we found a rope swing and nature walk.

During the early evenings and mornings the kids liked to fish off the back of the boats. There was a fishing competition on during our visit and saw plenty of fish caught… although we weren’t so lucky this time round.

Our kids were aged from 6 years – 10 years old and no matter how much we told them to be careful around the boat we found them walking outside of the boat rails around the boat. We did have one child who fell in so BE CAUTIOUS. There are life vests on the boat if you wish to put the kids in them for the duration of the trip. I wouldn’t recommend it for kids younger than 6 years old, but it depends on your individual kids and swimming ability.

During the evenings we would all hang out on each others boats, it was a lot of fun transporting ourselves in the motor boats in pitch darkness!