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Living your Luxe Life on the Sunshine Coast.
We have conversations with people who have found “home” on the Sunshine Coast & explore how they connect home with lifestyle & community.
As Property Buyers Agent we also discuss the macro economic factors impacting economic growth & property growth & where we are in the property cycle.
We overlay local market nuances of different sub markets from Noosa Heads to Maroochydore, to the Hinterland.
I hope you enjoy the series Living Your Luxe Life.
Hi. I'm Chris Mount from Luxe Coastal Property Buys. Today, I have a very exciting guest, Charlene Kelly, who is part of the Queensland Academy of Sport as a sprint kayak coach. She's also known as my personal kayak coach, which I've greatly appreciated over the years. But more importantly, she's the talent scout for the 20 32 Olympics.
Christine Mount:Welcome, Charlene.
Sharlene Kelly:Thank you. How are you, Chris? Really good. Also known as Charles. Yes.
Sharlene Kelly:I prefer that. I'm more comfortable with that.
Christine Mount:Okay. We'll we'll just go straight to informal. Charles? Charles originally taught me how to do podcasting, so I'm really excited that I can turn the tables now and have a chat to you. Very, very, very excited.
Christine Mount:Why am I excited right now? Because the Paris Olympics are on.
Sharlene Kelly:I have not done any exercise in a week because every single spare moment that I have is spent replaying anything I can to watch anything Olympics. I just love sport. Absolutely love sport. I've watched the shooting this morning. Actually, Chris, I'm really excited.
Sharlene Kelly:I have to add this. So with with my role at the Queensland Academy of Sport, I'm actually fortunate enough to be a part of a group of coaches called the Gen 32 Coaches. So part of my role with Queensland Academy also comes with, education for myself to better me as a coach. There are 12 coaches from 12 different sports as part of our group, and one of it and we've just recently graduated, but one of our group is Natalia Dyme, the BMX Freestyler, and she just got bronze. So we are all very, very excited for Natalia.
Sharlene Kelly:Yep. So bronze for Australia in BMX Freestyle, and she nailed it. Absolutely nailed it. I'm That
Christine Mount:is so cool. Yeah.
Sharlene Kelly:Oh, it was fantastic to watch. And But how did she have
Christine Mount:time to also be a Gen 32 coach at the same time as training for the Olympics herself?
Sharlene Kelly:Oh, no. They had to towards the well, see, what happened with Natalia was, a few years ago. So she was at Tokyo. Natalia's had something like 4 knee reconstructions. She's been riddled with injury for years.
Sharlene Kelly:And she thought that, even though she's by far the best BMX freestyle in Australia, with all these injuries, she thought her career was done as an athlete and wanted to get into coaching. She's fantastic with gender development, particularly with girls. She's just done a phenomenal job there. And so that's why QIA said, Okay, well, you're kind of retiring as an athlete. Let's get you into coaching.
Sharlene Kelly:So that's what happened there. But slowly but surely, as she was recovering so our very first time that we got together, she was on crutches. She'd just had her surgery. Oh, wow. One of her many.
Sharlene Kelly:It was the last one she had. And slowly but surely, as she was healing, she was getting back to the bike. She had a newfound happiness to be back on the bike, and she was training hard. So she slowly transitioned back into being an athlete again. Oh, that's so exciting.
Sharlene Kelly:Yeah. So they managed to fast track her Gen 32 coaching part Yeah. So she could get focused on being an athlete for the Olympics and hates payoffs.
Christine Mount:And then she got a bronze. To her. Oh, congratulations. That's actually awesome.
Sharlene Kelly:Thank you. Sorry. It's totally off topic. No.
Christine Mount:No. That's fine. But I think
Sharlene Kelly:that's how I call up sport.
Christine Mount:What what yeah. You do like but also, you know, the dedication that you need to do for training because you are an Australian champion in the k four paddling, which has taken you all around the world. But tell me about how you focused, how you became a champion in your sport.
Sharlene Kelly:So I started here in Noosa. I grew I grew up well, actually, I I grew up, out at a little little rural area called Dunan. Went to Yemundi Primary and Noosa High out at Korroy. And I started I rode horses as a kid. I had nothing to do with water sport at all, apart from I loved water skiing.
Sharlene Kelly:And so my dad would take me water skiing on the Noosa River, and I actually, my ambition was to be one of those water ski people at SeaWorld. That's what I was I was either gonna be a Jilaroo or a water ski stunt person at SeaWorld. What's Jilaroo? Where you muster cattle on horseback. So cool.
Sharlene Kelly:No.
Christine Mount:Jaccaroo? Jilaroo. Got it. Yeah. Jilaroo.
Christine Mount:So
Sharlene Kelly:I rode horses and I and I water skied. Yeah. Perfect part of the world in Noosa to be able to do that. So, as I got older and then I sort of discovered I played volleyball, actually. I used to play beach volleyball, down at the front of Noosa Surf Club.
Sharlene Kelly:And when we
Christine Mount:Did you know, Lee Zenia? He's, he went to the Olympics twice with beach volleyball.
Sharlene Kelly:Yeah. Right.
Christine Mount:He actually he works for us, but he's he, he represented the Olympics, yeah, twice. Oh, wow. Australia. He represented Australia at the Olympics.
Sharlene Kelly:I love my volleyball. I can't jump. So yeah. I'm terrible. Well, I can jump, but it looks horrendous.
Sharlene Kelly:Yeah.
Christine Mount:But you can paddle really well, obviously.
Sharlene Kelly:Make an Olympics for any kind of volleyball. Trust me.
Christine Mount:Were you trying to find a sport that would take you to the Olympics in the end? Like how did you find paddling?
Sharlene Kelly:It still wasn't on my radar when I was a kid. So I used to go down the beach and play volleyball, and my friend and I did that. Where my love for paddlesports started was there were guys from the surf club would paddle skis in between us playing beach volleyball, run a ski, go out through the surf, and I was like, I wanna do that. That looks amazing. How do I do that?
Sharlene Kelly:And they're like, Oh, you just gotta join the surf club, get your bronze. Done. Sold. So joined the surf club, got my bronze at 16, 17 years old, and then I was like, right, now how do I learn to do one of those? So there was an old guy, Alan Coates, at the surf club at the time, a great in our sport, and so he taught me how to paddle a ski, and the rest is history.
Sharlene Kelly:My journey from there has just flown on to discovering my husband, who then became my coach for kayaking. He was, a ski peddler and said, hey. You actually paddle alright. You should probably give this kayak thing a go. Gave that a go, loved it, raced it, and and then it just it just went on from there.
Sharlene Kelly:So you
Christine Mount:met Chris down at Muroolaba? Or Yeah. Yeah. So, what I've heard a rumour from yourself is that you thought it was cheaper to marry the coach rather than keep paying him?
Sharlene Kelly:Yes. Well, the sport of kayaking the sport of kayaking, unfortunately, is is not like football or tennis or anything. There is zero money in it. Yeah. In actual fact, it costs you.
Sharlene Kelly:You're in the minus to do that sport, like many Olympic sports. Yeah. And, yeah. So I I always joke that it was cheaper to marry the coach than I didn't have to pay coaching fees so I could remain the sport. Yeah.
Christine Mount:And you both, kept coaching. Before you were the talent scout for the Olympics, you were you were both coaching one of our local Iron Women?
Sharlene Kelly:That's correct. Yes. That's yeah. Lana Rogers. So we I mean, both Chris and I are super passionate about sport, paddle sports particularly, which includes we've both been heavily involved over the years in not just sprint kayaking, but Surf Life Saving.
Sharlene Kelly:And there's a really good relationship between the two sports as well. We are a real hotbed on the Sunshine Coast. I mean, why wouldn't it be? It's a water sport, and the Sunshine Coast or even Noosa is just a prime location in the world to be able to do your sport, but do it in an area that's actually nice to train. You can't beat we get on the water I'm mostly down Ruchel, but we get on the water at 5:30 in the morning.
Sharlene Kelly:So at the moment, it's dark and it's not exactly pleasant. But within about half an hour, the sun is rising, and some of the photos that I've got in my phone for athletes has become a thing now, that my athletes want either the sunrise or the sunset photo, because I accidentally took some photos. I was meant to do video, didn't realise my phone was on photo, got back and saw some photos that I've taken of the athletes when it was meant to be a technique video, and that was just spectacular. No filter. It's absolutely spectacular.
Sharlene Kelly:Okay. I'd love to see those. Yes. Yeah. I'll definitely show you.
Sharlene Kelly:So you don't get that as a water sports person, it's difficult to here is cold enough. I I could only imagine what it would be like for people that are living in southern states. They're getting on the water at that time. They might be freezing. So we're fortunate.
Christine Mount:For people who are listening from the southern states, say Melbourne, it might be, like, 0 degrees when you wake up and it warms up to about 6 degrees. When we wake up, it's 6 or 7 degrees and it warms up to a 15 usually by 9 o'clock.
Sharlene Kelly:Oh, easy. It's probably so it can be between 10 and 15 by 6 6 o'clock. Yeah. Yeah. You know?
Christine Mount:So it's not it's not too bad.
Sharlene Kelly:As soon as the sun rises, it's actually warming up pretty quickly. So my very rarely do my athletes get off the water and they're still really cold. I mean, it happens. Yeah. But we're not we're not totally void of winter weather.
Sharlene Kelly:Yeah.
Christine Mount:And so, that's incredible because then you're talking about the perfect climate to train, and you're saying we've got 3 Sunshine Coast sprint kayak, ladies in the Olympics this year.
Sharlene Kelly:We do. How inspiring is that for our local talent? Very good local talent. Local talent. Yeah.
Sharlene Kelly:I am certainly going to get busy. So next week is the, sprint kayaking is on, next week with everyone's been watching. Whenever you say that you're in a paddle sport of any kind, everyone refers straight to Jess Fox because she's just absolutely amazing. And yes, she does paddle what's called a K1, but that's in Slalom, that's whitewater. Yeah.
Sharlene Kelly:We're still water. Yeah.
Christine Mount:So she's just got a record of the first female to be 4 consecutive Olympics back to back as a winner?
Sharlene Kelly:3. 3. 3. 3. Yeah.
Sharlene Kelly:I can't remember exactly what her well, yeah. She's made history in so many areas. Yeah. Yeah. Just a phenomenal athlete and a fantastic family.
Sharlene Kelly:And, yeah, so we've got so next week is the Stillwater or sprint kayaking, or canoe sprint is probably what that will call it. And, yeah, we have 3 Sunshine Coast girls there. All 3 are Surf Life Savers as well. That's the beautiful thing about the relationship between canoe sprint or sprint kayaking and Surf Life Savings. So we've got Ally Bull, Ally Clark, and Elise Wood that will be competing and representing Australia and the Sunshine Coast next week at the Olympics.
Christine Mount:So will you get any work done next week? Are you going to put your talent scout on hold while you watch all the Olympics?
Sharlene Kelly:I feel like putting my phone number out on Facebook so anybody that sees that knows exactly who to call to get started. But I know that we always, all sports, post Olympics, always have an influx of inquiries.
Christine Mount:I mean,
Sharlene Kelly:that's the beauty about it being televised the way it is these days particularly, that you can really get to see and understand a sport and go, I really wanna give that a go. And that's what we're here for. Yeah. Well, I
Christine Mount:mean, you've spoken about Gen 32 for coaches, which is amazing. So you're being trained to be the best coaches getting ready for the Olympics. Let's talk about now scouting for talent for the 20 32, which is what you're doing. How do you go about that? I
Sharlene Kelly:have had a lifetime in Surf Life Saving. We always talent ID'd athletes through Surf Life Saving back in my day to give kayaking a go. And so for example, there are 11 sprint kayakers going to the Olympics this year.
Christine Mount:Oh, yep.
Sharlene Kelly:10 out of the 11 are Surf Life Savers.
Christine Mount:Wow. Okay. Yep.
Sharlene Kelly:So it's a no brainer, that you need to go through Surf Life Saving to find these athletes, because they're phenomenal. They've got that true grip mentality, because most of them have done nippers and punching in and out of surf. So they've got that, what we need. They've got really good feel for water, and they come with already a phenomenal fitness background. So when I started my role, that's what I did.
Sharlene Kelly:The first thing because I've been a Surf Life Saver for a long, long time. I had a squad of 0 athletes on my day 1 of my job. Yeah. So I know a lot of Surf Life Saving coaches right across the Sunshine Coast, and I just started making phone calls and coffee chats. And, yeah, it landed here now where I've just got athletes coming out of everywhere to own a truck.
Sharlene Kelly:And you
Christine Mount:ran out of boats there for a little while, didn't you? Because you had all these new athletes coming on board and you had to find enough boats for all of them to practice in.
Sharlene Kelly:That was a big struggle. Yeah. Yeah. So I got told when I started my role, to no fault of their own. But a lot of people thought that canoe, sprint, no young people wanted to do that anymore.
Sharlene Kelly:It wasn't exciting enough for young people. Yeah. And so kite clubs right across really right across the whole country have just turned into more a ocean ski club for retirees where they can store their gear and go for a nice little paddle and a social paddle together. There's nothing wrong with that. We love that.
Sharlene Kelly:Yeah. That's how I met you,
Christine Mount:which is great. Yep. Except for I'd say I'm not in the ocean yet and not quite a retiree. So I'm like I would say We're getting there. A river paddler on a wellness journey that helped me get well, which is pretty awesome, actually.
Sharlene Kelly:It is awesome. And we are going to get you out in there, actually. You can't you can't not go out off New Samane Beach. It is just it is the most spectacular paddle. I've paddled all over the world and I still, to this day, when I paddle around that headland at Noosa, I still feel so blessed to be able to be out there.
Sharlene Kelly:Yeah. So I've always seen dolphins out there this time of the year, run into a whale, not literally, but found a whale the other day. You know, there's always sea life out there. Turtles. Yeah.
Sharlene Kelly:This is spectacular. It's pretty it's pretty incredible, because I love swimming out there.
Christine Mount:So love swimming past the national park, and it's probably one of my favorite things on the planet. So I don't know what's gonna happen when I'm in, actually, a paddle boat and actually see a whale. It's gonna be pretty exciting. It is. Very spectacular.
Christine Mount:It's a
Sharlene Kelly:great feeling. Dolphins. So Yeah.
Christine Mount:That that's such an awesome it seems to me like that's the best the dream job you could possibly have on the planet is scouting for talent for the 20 32 Olympics.
Sharlene Kelly:Oh, I love it. Yeah. When when they said this role came up so this so as I just said before, spring kayaking is not exactly a financially lucrative, sport. Yeah. And so there's never really Well, there hasn't been a role ever on the Sunshine Coast for a QIS sprint kayak coach.
Sharlene Kelly:There's been People have done a little bit here and there and got a little bit of funding here and there, but nothing full time. So I am the 1st person to ever have a sprint kayak coaching role on the Sunshine Coast. Congratulations. Well deserved.
Christine Mount:You do deserve it though, by the way.
Sharlene Kelly:Yeah. Yeah. It does not get much better than this. No. I live it day in, day out, and, yeah, it's really cool.
Christine Mount:Yeah. Living your dream job, which is pretty awesome. So how old are the the kids that, you know, you're scouting for talent? Like, how young can they be? So we sort of start looking at
Sharlene Kelly:kids from around about the age of 14. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. My
Christine Mount:So in in 8 years' time, they're around about 20,
Sharlene Kelly:we're talking
Christine Mount:Yeah. 20, 22. Yeah. So
Sharlene Kelly:I've I've set up a platform at the Canoe Club, so I don't coach everybody there. Yeah. I've set up a plat we ended up with so many athletes that I couldn't do it all by myself.
Christine Mount:Yeah. Yeah.
Sharlene Kelly:So I've recruited 2 other coaches. Oh, fantastic. So now there's 3 of us now. Yeah. They're different levels.
Sharlene Kelly:And, yeah, so we've created a really cool pathway where I've got one of the coaches now teaches the athletes how to pedal a kayak and gets them upright. That's quite a process in itself. They're very tippy and narrow. And then I've got another coach that takes kind of our junior level. So that will take the athletes that are anywhere between 13 and 15, depending on their level.
Sharlene Kelly:So as long as they can move in a kayak, the next coach has got that. And then I'm in a motorboat. Yep. So I'm in a tinny coaching, and, I take all of the the what what we call, pre categorized. Yeah.
Sharlene Kelly:So the Queensland Academy of Sport has, different levels of categorization, to be a QAS athlete. And so I take the ones that are kinda knocking on the door of getting that categorization and the ones that have that categorization. Yeah.
Christine Mount:So you're really into technique then? You're out on the boat helping them with technique, speed, and all that kind of thing?
Sharlene Kelly:Yeah. Power, strength, fitness. Yeah.
Christine Mount:You name it.
Sharlene Kelly:They And they work they work really, really hard. I've got a couple of athletes that are just super duper dedicated. Yeah. And they're they're very focused and working very hard, which is, I feel blessed to be able to go and turn up and coach them every day.
Christine Mount:Yeah. Well, I think they're blessed to have you as a coach because, you'd keep them focused and, you know, with the passion, which is pretty awesome.
Sharlene Kelly:So I'm not I'm not all, what would you call it? I'm not all unicorns and rainbows. I was a I was a high performance athlete for a long time. So off Florida, we have a laugh and a joke and a smile. Yeah.
Sharlene Kelly:But on Florida, there's a job that's gotta get done. Yeah. And, and I'm there to I'm there to make sure that they get that job done.
Christine Mount:Oh, that that is awesome. So I was gonna say congratulations on the gen 32 coaching because that's an incredible achievement in itself that you're part of this new breed of Australian coaches that they're training, they're mentoring. So you can identify that, you know, the talent, but also have the skills to train them. So that's awesome.
Sharlene Kelly:Oh, it's great. What what the QIS and what, the or AIS, and many sports that have taken on the the challenge to do to be a part of this program is we want to get back to having homegrown coaches. We haven't really done, sports haven't really done a lot of development in the coaching area for some time, and they've recognised this as a gap. We have typically, a lot of sports, not all sports, but a lot of sports, particularly in pick sports, have typically searched overseas, and mostly sort of European regions for coaches. Yep.
Sharlene Kelly:And it is really, really cool that Australia has now just decided that, You know what? That may not be sustainable. And particularly with more freedom of speech these days, and our kids are a lot more confident to speak up these days. And you know, their coaching philosophies, the European coaching philosophies are second to none. They're they're fantastic, but they just don't have the personality that suits coaching a lot of Australian athletes, and this is where we're finding the conflict at the moment.
Sharlene Kelly:So the fact that, Australian sport has recognized this and gone, you know what? For sustainability of coaches and for keeping our athletes in the sport, we actually need to educate our own homegrown coaches because they understand the personality of our Australian athletes, and it recognising that that's nearly more important than getting the training out. When they realise that happy athletes, comfortable athletes are usually the most, focused to wanna achieve. Yeah.
Christine Mount:Oh, that's fantastic. Well done. And I think, living in a lifestyle location, not only are you doing what you've loved doing because you've always been close to the water, But I know you do things other than paddling. If anyone's listening about thinking of moving to the Sunshine Coast for a lifestyle, are there any hidden gems that you would recommend, something that you love doing that maybe only locals know about?
Sharlene Kelly:Well, it's not really something that only locals know about, but I do actually really enjoy walking up Mount Coolum.
Christine Mount:Yeah. Magic.
Sharlene Kelly:Yeah. It's great. And it's a great view up there. So that's my little thing. Yeah.
Sharlene Kelly:And then our absolute favourite thing to do when we're not in the ocean, our most favourite thing to do, we just did on the weekend, is to take a drive out to Kenilworth. That is my favourite thing to do by far. And we go straight to the Kenilworth, bakery. Yep. And we get we get our pies.
Sharlene Kelly:Pies at the first part of the bakery, then we go next door to the other part of the bakery and get our our world famous Kenilworth doughnut.
Christine Mount:And then And they are world famous, by the way. Was it yeah. This is the doughnuts in Kenilworth. Yep.
Sharlene Kelly:So good. And then we drive up Obyobi Road, which is a rickety little windy road up the hill to, Mapleton. Yep. And we sit out in out there's a there's a vacant block out the front of Mapleton Pub, and we we sit there on the grass and we have our by then, it's a cold pie. Yep.
Sharlene Kelly:My son loves it, so I've I've put up with having a cold pie. Cold pie and Kenilworth's donut That's fantastic. On the hill there at Mapleton. So that's our little thing to do.
Christine Mount:Amazing view of the coastline from up there. Oh, spectacular. Yeah. We were actually at the Mapleton Pub with Robin a few weeks ago when she took a group of paddlers to, out on the lake. We went Oh, nice.
Christine Mount:Yeah. And then we
Sharlene Kelly:ended up
Christine Mount:at the Mapleton Pub for lunch afterwards. You had a great day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Christine Mount:So that was awesome.
Sharlene Kelly:I know.
Christine Mount:That's really cool. I would've I was thinking that you may have said 4 wheel driving on the North Shore, camping.
Sharlene Kelly:Oh, that's the secret that I wanna keep.
Christine Mount:I'll have to oh, What? What? Not sure. Framing? No.
Christine Mount:We don't do that. So anyway No.
Sharlene Kelly:Me know what? I have got some yeah. It is it is an absolute beautiful part of the world up there. Yeah. As long as you respect it dearly.
Sharlene Kelly:But yes, I do love growing up the beach, and we love camping. Our kids grew up camping up there. And, yeah, it is spectacular up there. And there's no better feeling, the whole family feels it, even the kids since they were little, of crossing that barge and then going through the 3rd cutting to get down on the beach. As soon as you drive over that cut in, everybody's just like, And whenever we've been up there so you get no phone reception up there when you're camping.
Sharlene Kelly:And so whenever we've gone camping, we haven't been up there for a little bit, but whenever we go camping up there, it's a no electronic zone. Okay. So the family, yeah. Everyone puts away phones, and the caravan's always been full of board games and card games and puzzles. And we just surf and drink and eat and play board games.
Christine Mount:Repeat board games. Repeat. So good. That sounds fantastic.
Sharlene Kelly:And look at the stars, actually. We always say that sitting around the campfire, can't do that anymore. Sitting around there's no campfires that are out there anymore. But sitting around the campfire and looking up at the stars and watching the sun rise or the moon rise is just yeah. That was our TV.
Sharlene Kelly:We used to always say that when the kids were little. That's our TV screen. It's either watching the moon come up over the ocean or early in the morning watching the sun come up over the ocean. It was our TV. Do you
Christine Mount:know that's a really rich life when your TV is actually out in nature, watching nature? So can you say thanks for sharing everything that you're doing? And I wanna say congratulations, but on actually identifying the talent for the future for the 20 32 Olympics. Very, very exciting. Well deserved.
Christine Mount:And thanks for sharing that hidden gem that I'm not gonna tell anyone about.
Sharlene Kelly:The secrets between you and me.
Christine Mount:And everyone who listens to my podcast now. Okay. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Corinne. Let's go to the pub now.
Sharlene Kelly:Okay. Sounds good. Bye.