Canoeing across Scotland - video

[Jamie Adam]

Hi folks,

I've posted this in the canoe forum but there are a few rivers too so I've copied it here as well. I spent the weekend paddling the cross-Scotland route from Kinlochleven to Perth with my friend Jonny - I've put together a rough edit of our video diary which is online here - http://vimeo.com/23807358 - you may have to turn up the volume to hear us over the wind! It is just a quick stitch together of the footage so don't expect great cinematography, but I hope it gives a flavour of the trip - well worth doing if you get the chance.

And if kayaks are more your thing, try this instead.

Cheers,
Jamie

[Jim]

Nice one, I'll need to watch it again when I'm not at work and put the sound on (and watch it right through).

Good to see you got some sailing on Blackwater reservoir, it's nice after that walk.
I think you explain your route across the watershed - that really interests me because it looks like you went a different way to us.

Good time too, we were 3.5 days (although shorter days) to Kinlochrannoch where we quit on account of severe cold (so rivers empty) and strong headwinds.
I can't remember if my brother was 4 or 5 days on the route, mind you they went after the clocks changed so had more daylight, it was warmer and they were luckier with levels, although they still had strong headwinds most of the way.

A real epic route, just hope your video doesn't make it too popular :-)
Nah 9km of portaging with 300m rise (actually the rise is all in the first 3 km) will put most people off!

[Jamie Adam]

Yeah, we were very lucky with the wind and water - the rain was a bit depressing but it made it much quicker to drag the boats up and downstream on tiny burns, and we were able to sail down all the lochs. A headwind would have been a killer and I don't want to think about having to drag the boat over all the moors we avoided by using burns!

[Jim]

Just watched with sound - shame about the wind noise towards the end but a nice blog all the same.

Our first day ended pretty much where you were standing talking through the map (we had got one boat up to the conduit the night before whilst waiting for the shuttle but don't count that as a trip day).

The Blackwater was a little lower and with winter kit our boats a little heavier (plus since I only became a tandem about a week before I had panic bought too much extra food), so instead of dragging up the river we carried kit up first and then went back for the boats paddling when we could but still making long portages rather than dragging over the rocks (my brother just dragged up the rocks - well one was his boat). Before we got to the Lochan the snow started, we camped by the Lochan and were nicely snowed in next morning which helped a little with the portage to the railway - the burn you paddled up was frozen but wouldn't bear weight (lucky we had drysuits).

As we got to the bridge over the railway the snow melted - not sure if you used that or followed a burn under - that burn was nowhere near paddleable but we did manage to fill water bottles from it. The bigger burn from there to Loch Eigheach which it looks like you camped beside was way too low - we scouted this section without boats and opted in the end to head down a bit, over a flattish area and then up to the dirt road high above the far side. Just about forced the route across with the trollies, but lots of abrupt stops and strap adjustment. My brother did something entirely different, contouring around to the forest, finding a temporary road laid by the guys working on the viaduct and ended up camping by Loch Laidon or Dubh Lochan - I think they carried on to Loch Laidon because if houses by Dubh Lochan. And they had water for the Garbh Ghaoir the next morning.

You had plenty of water in the Gaur - we got on but I couldn't make progress downstream so we portaged along the road making camp 3.
Got back on at Bridge of Gaur just at the start of Loch Rannoch, which took 5 hours hard paddling into the wind and pretty much finished us off. Sailing up Blackwater reservoir was the only easy bit, I think I worked out we portaged as many km as we paddled!

We'd had 3 camps and were in a B&B having covered the same distance to the middle of your day 2. Interestingly, and I can't recall which day it was for him, I do seem to recall my brother mentioning that they nearly killed themselves trying to reach the end of Loch Tummel and ended up looking for a campsite well after dark - mind you they broke a trolley on the portage round the dam before...

It's a great route with a lot of options and variations, just make sure you wait for winter to break first so you can travel lightweight and have enough water!