By Jenel Hunt
What’s better than a book launch?
Well, according to Mt Colliery man Scott Rawstorne, three book launches!
Perhaps it’s an Irish thing – to be sure, to be sure, to be sure.
Scott is a paddler extraordinaire. He has paddled the grand canal in Venice, the fjords in Norway and destinations in the Greek Islands. He can count 500 locations in eight countries where he has wet a kayak, canoe or stand-up paddleboard.
But paddling has always been a favoured activity for closer to home on his days off so he is a fount of knowledge about waterways near as well as far. And he is about to launch – three times – his latest book, ‘The Paddler’s Guide to Queensland 2nd Edition’. It will join his stable of other titles published across the past 15 years.
His first launch will be Tallebudgera on Saturday (22 April) when a keen group of paddlers will be there to fete his book then dip their paddles in the water because no launch would be complete without a chance to put out on the water.
The second launch will be an all-local splash at Storm King Dam on the Granite Belt. The third will be in May at Fernleigh at the Brisbane River A lucky person has already won a canoe from a local manufacturer as part of that promotion.
Scott’s book writing started with a mountain biking guide.
“I used to do all these things and people said, ‘How did you do that?’ so I put the information together in a guide.
“I was kayaking a lot – mostly because i was working as a kayak tour guide – and that’s when I started writing the paddling guides.
His first paddling adventure was what he nicknamed 40 Paddles and 40 Pubs in 40 Days. The trip morphed into the book ‘Paddling Around New South Wales’.
“Then I had this crazy dream I could do ‘Around the World in 80 Paddles’. But I researched how much that was going to cost and I backed off. Instead, I went on to write paddling books on Queensland and NSW and South Australia,” he said.
And Melbourne and another book that features all of Victoria.
He has a day job – he says he’d have to have a Richard Branson lifestyle to paddle full time – but for many years Scott spent a couple of months a year travelling and doing the paddles that he included in his books. (He calls it researching.)
Now he has reached a kind of critical mass of knowledge and can do some of his research over the phone, because it is, after all, a big area to cover. Scott has also run guiding trips where he has taken people on paddling holidays. The Gordon and Franklin Rivers in Tasmania spring most readily to mind.
Scott and his partner Lissa moved ‘up the hill’ from Lismore last year. They’d always planned on moving inland but two big floods and the subsequent clean-ups hurried their move along.
“I was in a customer-facing job and every person had a bad story to tell. In the end it got us down so we thought, why wait four or five years; let’s do it now. Lissa was from Armidale originally so it was natural that we looked around these areas. We found the block at Mt Colliery with views of mountains on two sides and we love it. It’s just a quarter of an acre – it takes longer to mow the nature strip out the front than it does to do the block.”
They’re living in temporary accommodation while they wait for their house to be built, but already the place has put its spell on them and they have given the property a Celtic name, Baile An Aisling – home of the dream.
“We’re both creative and we love beauty. Lissa works in aged care and also teaches music and plays the Celtic harp, piano, mandolin, piano accordian, ukulele and cello.”
Scott said everyone was welcome to come the launch of his book at Storm King Dam on Sunday 30 April, starting at 9am. People can RSVP to his Global Paddler facebook page or website www.globalpaddler.com.au.
It will be fairly low key. He will be signing copies of his book and then going for a paddle around the lake … with whoever would like to join him on the day.
The first edition of the Paddler’s Guide to Queensland had 64 paddle trails in it. This one has 110. It has descriptions, maps, GPS co-ordinates, difficulty ratings along with fishing information, dog friendly status and even where to find a meal and a place to the stay the night.
For anyone interested in paddling with like-minded people, Scott has started a casual paddling group that goes out once a month, mostly to the areas that are (kind of) within cooee – Talgai Weir, Warwick, Lake Leslie, Connolly Dam, Storm King Dam and Glenlyon Dam – and occasionally to places that are further away.
Sometimes people who think about coming along wonder how hard the paddling will going to be.
“I’m not a high octane guy. It’s not about thrills and spills; it’s about relaxation, it’s about cruising around.
It’s not a marathon – there’s a lot of floating about and taking a picture here and there. I’ve often got five cameras with me.
“It’s the perfect hobby if you’re nature and beauty orientated. Some of the scenery is so beautiful. And there’s barely a person I know who’s been a paddler for a while who doesn’t become a birdwatcher. It’s rare I won’t see a sea eagle or an azure kingfisher.
“Most people who enjoy paddling are nature lovers. They’re not the type who hurt the environment. They’re nice people. I’ve never met a paddler I don’t like.“
