Paddling, which is an umbrella term for various water activities, such as kayaking and rafting, are difficult activities to learn. The following links will provide some information on basic skills, and locations and river levels to show where to go.
Skills Techniques
kayak paddling This website has a series of animations to show the basic skills.
The Whitehorse canoe club website has a vast array of useful information available, including river maps for many of the commonly run rivers in Victoria, and also a set of up-to-date river level readings with recommendations about what that level means for that specific river.