Lake Cowichan River Tubing

A great experience with awesome staff. You can enjoy an afternoon drifting down the river. I look forward to travelling nearby and getting to experience this activity with my friends and family. A must do activity if you enjoy water!

Need reservations during covid

It is not as "lazy" as we had thought. The first 2/3 if the journey had little to no current to push us down the way, meaning we had to either flutter kick swim, or drag our tubes most of the way. Quite tiring. If we hadn't grabbed a paddle from the rental shop we would have had an even harder time.

My friend and I tied our tubes together with rope provided by the shop which helped us stay together. We got drybags (thought they were rentals but you actually get to keep them) for a steal at $10. We hung these on the side of the tubes while floating and had no issues with water getting in.

The rapids were fun, nothing dangerous at all. At one parts we started floating backwards towards the beginning of the journey and struggled to paddle back the other way. Not sure if it was because it was later in the day (2:30 start) and end of the season (end of August).

We saw a black bear staring at us while we were floating by. Not much time to snack and relax if you wanted to stay within the 2.5-3 hour time frame suggested by the website.

If I tell you, I'll have to...

Highly recommend! Took our group three hours and we took our time. We had two young children with us who each rode with an adult in a swift tube. It worked great and the kids had so much fun going over the rapids. It would be nice if there were smaller tubes available. One adult in our group is very petite and found the standard tube too large. They couldn’t reach the water to kick or paddle; used a small paddle provided, but was hard to maneuver. Also because of where their centre of gravity was in the tube, it was easy for it to tip backwards. There are a couple spots on the river on the right that need to be trimmed back. People got stuck in the branches which could have been dangerous if they got tangled up. Despite some of the challenges, I would recommend this trip to anyone and will go back. Go prepared, and wear a life jacket if you at all unsure.