Doing the Highland fling in a kayak

Well my kayaking trip in Scotland last week was simply fantastic - I want to go baaaaack! The weather was really great especially last Saturday & Sunday, although water levels were really low, some rivers were a bit scrapy, but generally it boosted my confidence on the water bigtime and I’m feeling addicted to the sport again. Being back in work this week was a bit of a struggle – post-holiday blues – I’ve just had major withdrawal symptoms and been itching to get into a kayak again. But it’s more than that, I just love a bit of adventure, I love being in places where the scenery ministers to your soul, I’m not really a city-dweller, give me hills, mountains and big skies!

Anyway here’s the run-down on the trip:

Wednesday 28^th March
Most of the day was spent travelling with the 7.35am sailing to Stranraer and then driving up through Scotland. One of the boats came off one of the cars about 40 minutes down the road, so sorting that out slowed things up a wee bit, but we made it to the Bridge of Orchy for about 3pm for a late lunch. There we bumped into Colin Irvine, a professional Irish kayaker who was at CANI’s Paddlefest in February giving a slideshow presentation of his travels round the world to kayak some amazing rivers. He spent a couple of days paddling with us along with his girlfriend, so I had a bit of female company for a while!

Not far from the Bridge of Orchy is the Etive River and we went to a section known as the Triple Steps near Glencoe. Basically it’s a section of rapids with 3 pool-drops. When I first looked at them, and the 3^rd drop in particular, I just thought, no way! The water was pretty low but I was still rather nervous getting my gear on! From above the 3^rd drop looked like a pretty high drop, it’s maybe 8 foot though don’t quote me on that. Unfortunately I don’t have a camera, I think one of the other guys was taking a few shots, so I’ve nabbed a shot of the river from the net to give you an idea of what it was like, though there was less water when we were there than you can see in this photo of someone at the second drop.

So did I do it? – absolutely! 5 times in fact. The hardest bit was probably getting out at the bottom and carrying your boat back up to the top. The first time down the third drop I capsized but rolled right up – it was the first time that my roll felt entirely instinctive although I think the flow of the water helped to roll me up too, but it was an awesome feeling! I capsized one other time at the bottom of that drop and didn’t get rolled up, tried to hang in for a rescue from one of the guys, but it was an awkward spot for them to get to me so I ended up popping my deck – that was my only swim of the day! That third drop gave me a good opportunity to work on boofing – a technique where you plant a stroke at the lip of the drop, bring your knees up and hips forward so that you land nicely on top of the water rather than going straight down like a pencil. Needless to say I didn’t manage it but I’m learning! (There's video clip of someone running this drop here.) With the first drop I never got my line exactly right to make the second drop, with the low water there was a rock in the first pool I kept hitting instead of going straight through down the second drop, so that was a little frustrating. And in the second pool the force of the water kind of pushed you again the surrounding rock walls which was a bit disconcerting so there were a couple of runs when I had to paddle hard to get through the gap into the next pool. It’s a really beautiful spot, the water is so clean and clear and you’re surrounded by stunning hills and mountains. And on our way to the hostel we spotted some wild deer and stag which gave a great feeling of being in the middle of nowhere.

Thursday 29^th March
We set off to Spean Bridge first thing to paddle the Spean Gorge. It’s a really beautiful river. Some places reminded me of scenes from Lord of the Rings and I realised just how fortunate we were – paddlers are probably some of the privileged few that get to appreciate this river because there’s no other way of getting to it. Although water levels were pretty low there were some great sections of rapids although we had to portage a couple. There’s one called the ‘Constrictor’ – the whole river is forced through a narrow gap between rocks either side of the river, but we had to walk round it because the lack of water meant you could easily have got pinned.

There’s another section called the Fairy Steps which was a lot of fun. My first time down I just wanted to get down through it in one piece and did which was a great feeling. My second time I intended to make a couple of eddies, but I missed the first one so just paddled on and that’s when I capsized which was a bit frustrating and a bit scary too because once out of the boat you just didn’t know what was coming next and I was bracing myself for impact. But the guys were ready with a throw-line and I got out of the water fine. One of the guys had the digital camera out filming at that point, so I blame my camera-shyness for my lack of success on the second run!

On some sections of the river it was like being on a rollercoaster ride, you just didn’t know what was coming next. The force of the water would be such that you would think you were headed straight for a wall of rock, but the water would suddenly sweep you round, and as long as you kept your wits about you and stayed upright you were grand – it was exhilarating! At the bottom of one rapid I was swooping along and my line took me a bit closer to a rock than I’d intended so I ended up flipping over but I rolled straight up – my second combat roll of the trip and again it felt really instinctive – I was well chuffed!

After one of the portages the best way of getting back into the river was to do a ‘seal launch’ – basically launch from a height from a rock into the water. I knew it was the best way of getting into the river but it was probably about 7-8ft above the river and I was totally bricking it! I’m absolutely woeful with heights, I really don’t like them. One of the guys held my boat while I got in and got my spraydeck on. The guys already in the water were shouting encouragement but suddenly realised I was not a happy camper. One of the guys below asked if I was ok and I just said nothing and he realised he was better saying nothing too. My heart rate went right up, I was puffing and panting – just absolute fear. I knew I had to do it, that I had to face it, but I really felt like crying, I cannot describe the fear I felt! So anyway once I got settled in my boat, I went for it and it was totally fine, my boat went right into the water but came up fine. I was sooo relieved I could nearly have cried with relief and was shaking! That was probably my greatest achievement that day and I was chuffed about it, but I can’t tell you how scared I felt! All in all I really enjoyed our run on the Spean, it was a great day.

Friday 30^th March
I wasn’t firing on all pistons on Friday, I guess I was just kind of tired – I’ve never paddled 2 consecutive days before this trip! We did the Feshie River, a 7k run, with the first 5.5-6k being small rapids and a bit of a scraping session because of the low water which was a bit frustrating after a while. Then we came to a play wave which I couldn’t get onto at all, flipping twice which resulted in one rescue and one swim – I tried rolling both times but I was lifting my head too soon. That’s the freaky thing about rolling, your head needs to be the last part of your body coming up, but you’re always so desperate to get air and get out of the water!

Then there was a short section of rapids where the river narrowed considerably forcing all the water through the gap. (I think this picture is the place.) Up until this point we’d been in two groups and we were trying to eddy-hop – so person A paddles to an eddy, gives the nod to person B behind them and heads to the next eddy whilst person B then goes for the eddy person A just left. That’s the way it’s supposed to work, but our communication broke down a little and I was finding it hard to get into an eddy without the current carrying me on down. Anyway we came to this narrow bit, Liam was in front of me and I could see a lot of the other guys sitting at the bottom waiting for us which panicked me a little because there really wasn’t much room and I felt like I was going to land in on the top of everyone. Liam capsized and I capsized about one second after him, I tried to high brace and stop myself, but my deck popped and I ended up taking a swim. I was really frustrated at that point, because I wanted to get it right and then I realised that the other guys had been sitting at the bottom of the section for badness just to see the carnage as the rest of us came hurtling down this bit of the river! Anyway there was one more section of rapids which I actually ran really well – I managed to successfully prevent a capsize with a good high brace at one point as well. Some of the other guys ran that section a number of times but I’d just got to the stage where I’d had enough. Somehow water had gotten inside my gear with the second swim and I was cold round my middle so I decided to just get changed and warmed up. However we moved on to our next hostel right beside a pub with good home-cooked grub, so by the time I’d consumed a delicious Chicken Balti, I was feeling good again!

Saturday 31^st March
Seeing as I hadn’t paddled so well the day before I decided that it was time for Xena Princess Warrior to come out and assumed this role to give me a bit more fighting spirit for the day’s paddling! And it worked – I had an excellent day’s paddling. We had a 2 hour drive way up above Aviemore to the Findhorn Gorge. It was an absolutely beautiful day, blue skies, sunshine reflecting and sparkling on the water. In the forest beside where we got on the river, I could hear pheasants calling.

As soon as we got onto the river there was a wee rapid to run then the river widened into a wider pool and Rodger insisted on getting us warmed up and practising a couple of rolls. Out of 2 goes I managed one, still need to work on where my paddle is. One of the guys looked up and spotted this old man sitting on top of a huge boulder, bit of a Gandalf look-a-like complete with long grey hair who seemed to be meditating!

The water level was really ideal on the Findhorn, the most amount of water we’d seen all week. There were mostly grade 2-3 rapids with a couple of grade 4 rapids. Most of us portaged the first Grade 4 rapid, and when we scouted the other Grade 4 rapid nearly all of us were going to do it. But then one of the other guys ran it and ended up in one of the holes – a circulating hole – which held onto him for a bit. He got out of it ok but when I saw that I was really put off and decided to walk it along with some of the others! Doing the portage is probably the hardest work with a day on the river – clambering over rocks with your boat takes a lot of energy. I’m convinced I’ve gained some extra muscle after this trip!

The rest of the day on the Findhorn was great, it was the first time when I felt I was beginning to grasp what’s needed to make good lines when paddling and I felt like I was getting a better hang of getting into eddies. And it was the first day I didn’t swim at all! So I was well chuffed and even by 6.30pm when we got off the river I was still feeling a sense of exhilaration.

Sunday 1^st April
We had a bit of a lazy start but eventually got packed up and set off for the Etive to do the Triple Steps on our way home again. Unfortunately there was a bit of a communication breakdown – my gear was in one of the other cars and the guys driving it got to the Triple Steps well ahead of everyone else but then thought that they’d missed us. Men are definitely from Mars and women from Venus! So I didn’t get to paddle which I was a bit disappointed about. Having said that there was only time for about 3 runs of the drops before we had to set off again.

The weather was absolutely stunning on Sunday – wall-to-wall sunshine and some of the lochs were as still as glass – the way the mountains reflected in them was so beautiful. We had lunch in a pub beside Loch Lomond and it was even warm enough to sit outside. We made it to Stranraer in good time for our ferry only to find that it was delayed by an hour due to Spring tides, and once we eventually got onto the boat we were informed that it was an engine down and the crossing would take 2¼ hours. So I didn’t get in through the door until 11.45pm! A long day and I was bushed.

So all in all it was an awesome trip, I’m so glad I went and I’m really pleased with how I paddled. The craic was good with the guys and there’s talk of another trip happening in October/November – bring it on! There’s not too much water about in NI these days so I’d say we’ll mostly be on the lake from now till about September. But I’ve got another kayak trip coming up at the end of May – hee-hee – I’ll say more about that another time!