Scotland Easter 2011

From ICCC

People

• Rach
• Ally
• Tom L
• Paraic S
• Mark W
• Alby
• Rory
• Rik
• Derf
• Robert
• Alex R
• Colm

Trip Report

After some rather cold and dry Winter trips to Scotland we decided to try our luck for some Easter water.

19 April –Why is Scotland so far away?

By some magical coincidence (possibly involving organisation) everybody turned up where and when they were supposed to: Alby and Tom got collected from a random station by the M42, Alex was picked up at some M5 services and Wardle abandoned his car on a bridge by the M6 near Wigan. The sunshine was appreciated with everyone stopping for icecream before Rannoch moor, otherwise the drive was a fairly uneventful 11 hours. On arriving at the hostel we found Rob had failed at his only task (buying milk).

20th April –Spean and Arkaig

In keeping with Scotland tradition we began the trip with the Spean followed by the Arkaig. The Spean was at a pretty low level, everybody took a wee at the start to increase flow. Derf kicked off the swim count at fairy steps, headbanger (?) also claimed a few victims. Next we headed over to the Arkaig which was paddled by most, with a disappointing lack of carnage. All paddled out, everybody headed to Fort Bill to do the shopping, while I took Alby on a tour of the local housing estates to complete his minibus test. It seems there are a lot of dead ends in Fort William; Alby is now an expert in 3 point turns!

Tom Alby and Derf finally received their instructions from Tom Parker for the safety course. They proceeded to spend the evening creating first aid kits, to impress teacher.

21st April –Hardcore on the Etive, swimming on the Leven or looser hillwalking

We heard a rumour that the Etive was running, so after dropping the safety course people at the put in for the Leven we continued up to Rannoch moor. We found the Etive was running at a low level but the glorious sunshine made for a lovely photogenic run. Mark and Ally jessed out of paddling for some hardcore walking instead, Macrae decided to join them causing some faffy shuttling. Leaving the remaining group of Rory, Colm, Alex, Paraic and I to take on the Etive. After watching another boater make it look less than fun, everybody portaged ‘crack of dawn’. We ran all the other drops without incident, Right angle falls had a lovely dead sheep floating in the eddy at the bottom. We stopped off at the Clachaig inn to introduce Colm to haggis, we then collected the safety coursers’ from Kinlockleven and faffed about trying to find the walkers.

22nd April -multitudes descend on the Garry

The Garry was scheduled for a release, so every boater in Scotland turned up in the carpark. We set off fairly early to get a run in before the crowds turned up. We also made our first stop at some award winning public toilets (Rory was still feeling the night before)! Macrae was dispatched to collect Rik from Fort Bill, while the rest of us got our first run in.

The Garry being a bouncy friendly grade 3 most had a few goes. Colm had a comedy swim in the hole on first rapid, everyone else kept their hair dry. Rik and Rob turned up and joined the masses on the river, Rik elected not to paddled the last rapid because there were too many spectators. While we were waiting for the safety course to finish an impromptu boater-X was initated. Paraic led all the way and almost lost it at the end by celebrating too soon requiring several roll attempts. Second third and fourth was closely fought between Mark, Alex and Colm.

The sunshine and decent water gave the day an almost alpine feel. Having sat about in sun watching all manner of lines through the final hole, I finally manned-up and got on to surf the bottom wave (It was really Big!) Alex Rob and Colm also got on for moral support, while Paraic alternately, shouted encouragement at us and abuse at some playboater who doesn’t know how to queue. Colm got a lift to the pub with some ladies from Leeds, while the rest of us waited for the safety lot to finish. The group from Leeds we also staying at our hostel this included Dave Goadby (who it turns out went to India with some other ICCCers in 2008). Plenty of beverages were consumed, Colm introduced a new horse racing related game that should definitely make an appearance on future trips.

23rd April -5 hours of driving for 5 hours of boating

Some rain over night prompted excitement in the Leeds group, we however, wisely stuck to our plan and commenced our day of Epic Driving. We dropped the safety group at a low looking Spean and continued over to the Meig. Inspite of covering the length of Loch Ness we saw no evidence of Nessie, according to Rory she was in the pub with the locals.

The Meig dam was running at decent compensation flow, so we walked down the bank to inspect the first serious drop. Ally decided he ‘liked his face the way it is’ and would be shuttle bunny, Rik had left half his kit at the hostel and didn’t fancy it either. Paraic managed to trip over and fall arse first onto a rock whilst inspecting; later Rory bought him an inflatable Barbie ring to sit on.

Once in the gorge the only way out is down-stream, which makes for a fairly intimidating run. The first drop looked much bigger from in the gorge than it had from the top, Alex spent some time in the boils but everyone got down in one piece. Drop followed drop and eventually we got to the heinous portage. After some rope work and nearly losing Wardle’s boat we all got around the nastiness. The river continued in a similar nature, aptly summed up on UKRGB as “more-or-less continuous bedrock rapids for the whole 2k, ranging from constrictions to cauldrons and ledge drops”. The highlight or the river was paddling a small rapid under a natural rock arch. The Meig was definitely one of my trip highlights definitely worth doing again.

Taking advantage of longer daylight hours we then headed over to the Findhorn where the keen people put on. We met a raft guide at the put on who informed us about the 3 mandatory portages on this section; the keen group proceeded to run everything. I elected to take a nap in the bus insstead, while Rik ‘hilariously’ tied me to the seat with roofrack straps.

The safety group had some adventures of their own removing a tree from the Findhorn. Tom’s group also managed to miss the take out by about 2 miles. All eventually collected at the Findhorn take out, and we made our way to Inverness to sample the delights of the local takeaways, finally getting back to the hostel at about 1am.

24th April -Return to the Etive

Popular vote took us back to the Etive, we tested Alby’s driving skills on the way there by balancing items on the rear view mirror to see how long they lasted. Since it was Easter Sunday a chocolate bunny was procured and floated down river. In spite of the dead sheep still at the bottom of the falls four of us were still daft enough to eat the bunny, happily no ill effects were experienced.

Some people headed to the Clachaig inn while others went for a second run. There was talk of inspecting the tribs however as someone put it: “if the Etive is like sliding off wet rock, the tribs will be sliding over moist rock”. We returned to the hostel to devour a small mountain of food.

25th -Drive home

Lots of driving- very boring, we stopped at three different services before finding a suitable one for lunch. Happily Wardle’s car hadn’t been nicked the bus finally got back the union sometime in the evening, completing and successful incident-free Scotland trip.

Thanks to everybody who came along and made a great Easter tour!

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