Heartwarming adventure on Waitangi River trip

All aboard: Heart Kid families board the Taimai Tours cultural waka to travel up the Waitangi River. Photo /Supplied

In a heartwarming adventure, Heart Kid families experienced paddling a traditional Maori waka up the Waitangi River together.

Heart Kid families from throughout Northland were provided with a rare and unique insight into the history of the area thanks to the generosity of Taimai Tours: Heritage Journeys based in the Bay of Islands, who conducted the tour for families free of charge.

The families also enjoyed a thunder bike trail thanks to Denise and Mark from Thunder Trike Tours.

Heart Mum Leanne Clark had this to say about the experience.
"I loved the day because it is something my son and I share, we shared this together, just like we shared being in hospital together. I don't get to spend much time with my son now that he is a teenager. These types of days bring the two of us together for fun times.

''We also loved the day because it is time spent with other families who are going through or have been through similar things in their child(s) life. I got to talk to a Dad whose son has similar symptoms to what my son went through at a similar age. I hope that what we said helped him with their family's situation and shared our lessons learnt, as some comfort."

Heart Kids New Zealand regional family support coordinator for Northland Mathilde Noordzy says that once or twice a year they organise a family day for Heart Kids families.

"As we know, growing up with a heart condition is something that affects the whole family, therefore our family days are a wonderful way to get our heart families together and provide them with an opportunity to get to know other heart kids, parents and siblings.

"As heart conditions are not seen on the outside it is difficult to make people understand what it is like to live with one, or with a child or sibling who has one."

She said one heart mum, Anna Crickett, emailed her these words:
"Thank you so much to you and everyone else at Heart Kids who helped to organise the family day on Saturday. We all had such an awesome day. For us it was our first time meeting and talking properly to other families with kids with heart conditions. It really helped to spend time and talk to other parents who have had a similar experience to us. It was also so nice to have some fun as a family, especially when the last year has been particularly hard for us as a family, dealing with our son's heart and other health issues."

Mrs Noordzy said, "These family days are an opportunity for the whole family to just have fun together. Fun times out together have become rare occasions for many of them and I can't tell you how moving it was to see such happy smiles on all members of the families."

The day was made even more special when Jaeden and Ruby Marris came with their family to present their cheque from the Toblerone raffle, in honour of their heart angel sibling Belle who went to heaven 8.5 years ago.

There are more than 110 heart children in the Heart Kids database in Northland.
• One in 100 babies born in New Zealand have congenital heart defects (CHDs)
• There are over 40 different types of defect
• More than 550 major heart surgeries carried out on Kiwi kids each year
• 12 babies are born in New Zealand each week with a childhood heart condition