A slow day on the water, sorted by lunch.

Some of the easiest, prettiest paddling in the Northern Rivers is also some of the most overlooked.

At Brunswick Heads the river splits into Simpsons Creek and Marshalls Creek, both shallow, clear and slow. Time it with the tide and you barely have to paddle, just drift downstream over clean sand with rays gliding underneath and crabs working the banks. It is calm enough to learn on, shallow enough to swim most of the way, and quiet enough that the kids can captain their own boat without anyone losing sleep.

Buying a kayak means storing a kayak, and most of them live their lives bolted to a garage wall. Hire a double for the day instead, add a stand-up board for whoever fancies falling off it, and an esky for the riverbank lunch. One local sorts the lot, you pick it up a few streets from the water, and the only real decision left is where to pull in for a swim.

The gear is simple, but it is not cheap to own. A stable two-seater with a moulded sit-on hull is the one you want with kids aboard, paddles and life jackets thrown in, while an inflatable stand-up board rolls into a bag the size of a swag and pumps up firm in five minutes. Neither likes garage life: hard hulls go chalky in the sun and inflatables hate being stored damp, which is half the reason hiring beats owning.

Buy a double kayak, a paddleboard and an esky and you are three thousand dollars deep in gear that needs a garage wall, a roof rack and a hose-down after every salt trip. Hire it for the morning instead, pick it up a few streets from the put-in, and the only upkeep left is deciding whether to paddle the creek or just float it.