Loch Lubnaig

A lovely day out on Loch Lubnaig. I was demoing a Pyranha Fusion from Stirling canoes which was very very nice and I bought one when we got back to the shop! The wind was coming down the loch so we started at the bottom of the loch by the mouth of the River Leny and paddled up the way first. Davey used a kayak paddle in the front of the canoe because otherwise he made very little headway against the wind. When we turned and headed back we flew down the loch with very little effort!

Alumni on a scrapey North Esk

Alumni weekend! This meant that there were five alumni and three students on the river, and since once you graduate you seem to automatically get worse at paddling (everyone says so), there was some swimming and portaging and none of it from the students! Hmmmm.
Anyway, the river was very, very low but still doable. Jamie discovered a large hole in his boat early on and Davey realised he'd forgotten his inhaler. So far the alumni weren't doing very well.

Rocks were the theme of the day.

Boat emptying. There was a lot of this!

We trundled down and there were a couple of portages and a swim at a rapid we decided was called "Big rock". The next excitement came at Shotgun where all the Alumni except me portaged. The top drop was mildly mean but the rest was really easy.

Boofing just below Shotgun.

Not far below a sneaky little bendy whirly holey bit capsized Kirsty and I almost ploughed into her, backpaddled, flipped in the hole and went for a dip. The water was surprisingly warm for March! Davey portaged witches step whilst Kirsty and I got back in on a very helpful shingle beach and slid down the fall... into a rock. Ouch. But all was ok and we paddled on down to Rocks of Solitude.

Who ate all the pies?

Davey decided to call it a day due to feeling nervous about an asthma attack and switched boats with Jamie so that there was less sinkage. The alumni put boats on shoulders and portaged happily, while the students bashed on down with no drama.

Rocks of Solitude.

We all met up at the bottom and paddled down through little rapids and gorges to Fishladder Falls.

Small drop in the gorge below RoS.

After a quick inspection by some of us, Kirsty and Rowan portaged and Jamie and I paddled down with the students who of course were not afraid of anything.

Fishladder Falls from above, during inspection.

Fishladder Falls from below, after paddling down.

We floated on down through the gorge to the take out at Gannochy bridge where Davey had managed to beat us to the end!

Kayak convoy down the dual carriageway.

St Andrews Sea Paddle

We live in a very pretty town with a superb bit of coastline. However, we almost never go out paddling along it because other things are more exciting and, of course, the sea is very, very scary. But it was a sunny Sunday and we couldn't be bothered driving anywhere far, so we packed lunch and set out from East Sands to paddle round to West Sands. The only hiccup in the journey was getting to the beach at west sands and the two of us thinking "it's been years since I last surfed... what do I do?" But in the end we were fine! We had lunch on West Sands in the shelter of the dunes, then paddled back round to East Sands with the wind behind us this time, much faster.

East Sands with the Cathedral in the background.

Davey in his snazzy matching kit.

Castle sands and St Andrews Castle.

Lunch stop on West Sands

Back out into the surf!

West Sands with the golf course in the background.

Back on East Sands!

Paddling Upstream

Packing up ready to go.

It was a nice day but a little bit breezy, so Davey and I headed for Loch Faskally, which is usually sheltered at some point due to its orientation. When we got there we met some nice people in kayaks who told us that it was very windy down by Pitlochry, so we decided to stay up near the Linn of Tummel and have a paddle up the flat section of the Garry. Leaving the kayak on the car, we set off up to the Linn for a nosy then paddled slowly up the Garry till the current defeated us just downstream of the road bridge. However, there were people being very silly and bungee jumping off the bridge, which was amusing to watch for a while.

Just below the road bridge on the Garry.

Crazy people on bunjee ropes.

We then set about lining the boat up the fast bit until it was nice and flat again. The gorge above here was very pretty with interesting rock formations, hanging ivy and the remains of at least two bridges.

In the Garry gorge.

Finally though we were stopped by this small but powerful rapid:

So we headed downstream much quicker than we had paddled up! On the way back Davey coached me on solo paddling. We got back to the car and Davey got his kayak of the roof so that I could have a go by myself in the canoe.
Now, a word of caution: if you're a kayaker, learn to high brace properly. A number of years ago on a rather high lower Etive I did a very dodgy high brace on my left side, ripped a tendon in my shoulder and it never really healed properly. A few months later I did the same thing on the other side on the Orchy. Since then I have drilled myself in proper high brace and low brace technique and the only time I've come close to hurting my shoulder was bracing off a rock (bad idea).
Nowadays my shoulders don't bother me too much apart from the fact that I can't perform J stroke for more than about five minutes without lots of pain. So Davey has decided to teach me solo using the Goon stroke! It's not as efficient, but I can now get going and paddle around a bit on my own which is nice.

Gooning along.

Davey demonstrating using the kiddie paddle.