Chairman of the board

STAND-UP paddleboarding on the freezing River Derwent at New Norfolk in the middle of winter is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea.

But for instructor Cameron Douglas, it’s a piece of cake.

Mr Douglas moved from Sydney to New Norfolk and set up the Derwent Valley Stand Up Paddle Board School, which has been operating for about two months.

He had never so much as surfed until about five years ago, when a friend introduced him to stand-up paddleboarding.

While he fell into icy water on his first attempt, he was undeterred, going home to buy his first board, and has now been teaching for 3½ years.

“I guess I want to just connect with the local community, and it’s just another avenue, one, to promote the river, [and] two, it’s a good group exercise you can do, go out with some mates,” Mr Douglas said.

While he admitted winter was “not the ideal time to paddle,” Mr Douglas said it was not as bad as it seemed, either, and he hoped business would pick up in the summer.

“I was out here the other day, the sun was out, it was 10 degrees, [and I was in] shorts and a T-shirt,” he said.

Mr Douglas said New Norfolk was an “ideal” place to start a stand-up paddleboard business.

“Early mornings on the river down here are just amazing,” he said. “We’ve got beautiful smooth water, which is the best water to learn on, and then you can go and play in the surf, or we’ve got some rapids.”

The school will be able to take groups of up to eight by summer, and operating hours are flexible depending on when people book.