Paddle Australia Qualification Scheme (PAQS) Training Comes to the NSW Central Coast

I first met Colin North and Trish Treagus, owners of Kayak Central Coast (based in West Gosford, NSW) five years and five months ago – exactly, to the day(!) – when I purchased my first kayak, a made-in-New Zealand Viking Espri in ‘lava’, a black and red fade I subsequently learnt was not at all a popular choice by many! Up and running for less than 18 months at the time, mine was certainly one of their earlier kayak sales.

September 2019, two years later and Kayak Central Coast had started running three- and four-hour Sunday Social Paddles, to start building a local kayak community. I remember the very first one of these trips out – Woy Woy Lion’s Park to Ettalong Beach and back – stepping out of my comfort zone and meeting a bunch of strangers to participate in a sport I was most definitely a complete novice at. It was a blast, and I was hooked! Running every two weeks, these paddles became increasingly popular, often with 10-15 paddlers attending, and it wasn’t long before a two-hour Wednesday (morning) Social Paddle joined the itinerary, and becoming even more popular. The ‘Coastie’ kayak scene was definitely starting to pick up!

In mid- to late-2020, myself and three others met with Colin one evening at the shop to discuss his plans for expanding the business beyond sales, support and social paddling, by offering commercial, guided tours on the local waterways using Paddle Australia accredited Flatwater Guides. I remember catching the train up from Sydney after work for this meeting, as I’d yet to move to Gosford at that time.

The four of us budding paddle enthusiasts would be those guides, and by March the following year, we’d be busy guiding commercial paddles, alongside the social paddles. Well, that was the plan, but then something called COVID-19 got into its stride and everything changed. The social paddles were cancelled as we all grappled with what this global pandemic might mean for (or do to) us all. And that seemed to be that.

Fortunately for us, Paddle Australia was still able to run its courses (COVIDSafe) and the four of us did in fact enroll on a Flatwater Guide course in late September, run over two days down at Lake Parramatta Reserve. Attending the course was one thing, but completing the project work and fulfilling the requirements of the logbook in order to sit the qualification assessment took another six months of paddling. (The challenge here was finding a local Paddle Australia-qualified Flatwater Guide who could accompany us and verify our logbooks.)

Then, in March 2021, two of us sat and passed the assessment and became qualified Flatwater Guides, so at last, two guides! But wait – Public Health Orders? No social gathering? And after just two commercial paddles, we were in lockdown and that was that, and the rest is pretty much history.

So, fast forward to present day, and the point of today’s blog. Whilst commercial, guided paddles are now back on the agenda, Kayak Central Coast has today been able to start offering kayak training courses under the Paddle Australia Qualification Scheme (PAQS). Two Basic Skills courses are being run towards the end of February (one for sit-on top kayaks, and one for sit-in kayaks) and further courses are already being scheduled for March, these likely to include more advanced PAQS courses.