Ever since NZDBA managed to get Dragon Boating back onto Lake Karapiro, in the Waikato, Aoraki Dragons have had a vision of using the South Island's top rowing venue for Dragon Boating.

In the very early years (mid 1990s) the old Festival Dragon Boating was run,from time to time, at Lake Karapiro near Cambridge. For years we thought that the party antics of our earlier paddlers had made us 'persona non grata' at Karapiro. But the reality was that Karapiro was happy to have us back, and we have had Nationals there for many years now. But South Island teams have had to do a lot of travelling, at great cost.

So Aoraki have taken the bull by the horns and put on the very first event at Lake Ruataniwha, so that we now only have a 3.5 hour drive to our racing venue. And the effort has paid off, with the twenty teams having a full day of racing - starting with four flights of 2,000m Turns Racing. This was our chance to use the new orange pillar-style Turns Buoys. We set out five of these near each end of the 500m course, and they describes two beautiful round curves, that all Sweeps navigated with ease. We can say that these were as good a Turns corridor as we see at the top IDBF events around the world. Take a look at our Live Stream recorded on YouTube.

Next we ran the 500m Races, using our new system of Starting pontoons, complete with a speaker mounted behind/between each boat. They used a combination of our blue plastic pontoon sections, and interconnecting timber frames, plus the steel Sweeps' handles so that our Starters, Shane Ramsay and Lisa Marshall, could line up our five lanes with ease.

The day finished with 200m Sprints, using rolling starts. This gave us a valuable learning, that pontoons make the Starts so muych easier and faster - so Aoraki needs to refine the technique of movin the pontoon,or source a second set of pontoons to use, that we can set up in the days before racing begins.

Meanwhile, the bespoke buildings at the Meridian Rowing Centre meant that Lake Ruataniwha has an excellent Finish Line Tower for the Photo-Finish equipment, plus a Crows Nest for the commentator.

The site has ample infrastructure such as internet access (Aoraki backs it up with StarLink), a full PA system, replay screens and IP data networks, as well as First Aid Room, Secretariat room, cafe and fulll kitchen and ample toilets.

So we are fully confident in returning in 2026 with South Island Champs, and hope to host NZDBA Nationals too (possibly in 2027).

Aoraki Dragons are indebted to Karen Lloyd-Griffiths, who spends much of her spare time in Twizel, for her dedication, vision and drive in making this happen.

On the left is the Finish Line Tower, including a landing deck for the Drone/camera. Next is the cafetaria, and in front is the tent area for 20 or so crews (Nationals teams would need to spread further along the ample bank). A full podium is at the lake edges, with a crew loading dock/edge. In future, we plan to add floating docks for loading.