Well, after a week of rain, the options for our weekly Sunday paddle were many…with a good turn out, we decided to plump for the Top Findhorn.

By the time we reached the river and checked out the grade 3/4 at Dulsie Bridge we were in high-spirits and so decided to run the Upper section as well as the Top!

River Grade: 3(4)
My Boat: WaveSport Diesel 75
Group Size: 10

After one of the longest and most ‘faffy’ shuttle runs in history, we finally put onto the water and headed down the river. The Top section was at a good level and provided a good warm-up for escapades later on the Upper.

The only bit of bother on the Top was found at the narrow gorge section where most of us capsized on the huge hole. Half rolled up and three of us (myself included) decided it would be a nice day for a swim; there’s only so many rolls you can do in a row before pulling the deck seems like a good option!

[Ed. I have been kindly informed by Dave Young that I have not taken the p!ss out of myself enough for this completely avoidable, novice-style, panic-and-pull swim. Yes, I made a complete t!t of myself!]

As we approached Dulsie, we decided to jump out and check out what lay ahead. A few in the group decided to walk around to the bridge, while the rest of us opted to shoot it. The water was fairly high and hitting the eddie river-left at the top of the gorge was trickier than normal. But, most of us suceeded and we all headed on down to the main fall…

All was going well, until Eddie decided to attempt Dulsie backwards (well, almost upside-down/backwards). After manouvering into a better position, he unfortunately got eaten by the bottom hole and his boat got pinned; Pin No.1 of the day!

The rest of us made it down fine and Bernie did the honours by freeing the boat…on we paddled…

Not much more excitement, save a bit of surfing and playing, until we reached U-Bend. Although the levels were high enough to give us the option of boofing the ledge on river-right, a big tree had decided to lodge itself in the pool below the fall, so we decided to err on the side of caution and portage.

Leven’s Gorge provided a lot of fun; with surf waves, drops and boily eddie lines. One or two capsizes, including Bernie who decided to hit a rooster tail side on (!), but all fun and no real incidents…

Just as fatigue was setting in, we arrived at JCB. Given the water was fairly high, we decided to take a look before running it…as we approached on foot, it all looked fairly easy and we wondered why we’d bothered getting out…but then as we drew level with the hole, what looked tame from above opened-up into a meaty hole with a nasty tow-back followed by another nasty hole on the other side of the river…

Despite this, a line (river-right to river-left) could be made out and most of us decided to give it a shot. The water was pretty pushing and I for one missed the first eddie, but we all made it down safetly. Scrub that, Eddie and Kenny decided to visit the fishes for one last time, roll on Pin No.2!

Out came the throw bags and karabiners and after about 5mins of pulling and pushing, we freed Eddie’s boat for the second time; that’s one solid boat…thumbs up to the boys at Perception kayaks!

So, with only a 1km left til Ardclach, we sauntered on down towards to the old church and the get out. It was a top paddle with plenty of excitement and play opportunities; a lovely sunny day and the first ‘warm’ paddle of the New Year!

What’s next week got in store I wonder?!

Well, it’s only a few days since I last paddled it, but I decided to take the afternoon off work and go for a quick paddle down t’Middle with Pete, Sean and Kenny.

Levels we medium/high with quite a few rapids, like House Rock and Elephant Rock, pouring-over. It was a quick donder down as it was getting on by the time we all reached the river; but a nice trip nonetheless!

No real incidents; just Kenny’s swim on Carnage Corner and a few floating trees to avoid!

Nice day out, though, but no need for a full report as the paddle was all-but the same as last Sunday’s…

Bring on the next river…the Upper Findhorn me hopes!

Ok, well today was one of those days where best-laid plans go to pot…discussions at Friday night’s pool session suggested that there’d be a good gorup of folk out today…but no, three called off as I was driving to the meeting point and another one failed to show up! So, myself and Tim D were left to tackle the Middle Findhorn on our own…

River Grade: 3+
My Boat: WaveSport Diesel 75
Group Size: 2

Braving the wind and snow, we headed for Ardclach. It was clear from looking at the river as we drove down the hairpins that the levels were really high; what’s normally a scrapy put-in was washed out with one or two stoppers present just up stream!

After doing the shuttles, and eventually managing to zip-up my dry suit, we headed-off down the river. The first little section, rather than containing little drops and small waves, was fast-moving with pushy uneven wave trains, pour-overs and stoppers. Given the speed of the water, it didn’t take long to shoot down, however, and soon we came to our first hazard…

We’d been told by some folk in the club that there were a few trees stuck in the Findhorn (due to a couple of weeks of heavy snow which snapped them in two); the first one we came across covered about 2/3 or the river. It was hanging somewhere around shoulder height and was positioned right above a nasty looking hole. Not too much bother so long as you got your line right, but I wouldn’t fancy getting it wrong…ouch, gulp, glug, smack…

A few wee waves and holes later, we arrived at Logie Bridge. House Rock lay just beyond and was a complete pour-over; I’ve never seen it like that before! Ran it without any incidents and headed on down to the play hole just below. This was completely washed out, but a bigger hole had formed just to river-left. Had a quick play and then onwards…

The next rapid of note was Elephant Rock. This was all-but a pour-over and the two small stoppers below was huge. Both were river-wide and the lower of the two had awesome play potential…we stooped for a while, then headed on…

The river was fast, so the normally flat sections wizzed by and it wasn’t long until we reached Dragon’s Tooth and the start of the gorge section. As we approached, we could see water half-covering the gravel bank (which normaly resides about 1m above water level), so turning the corner and seeing water covering the whole gorge floor wasn’t all that surprising.

Today, you could run Dragon’s Tooth pretty much any way you liked; the central rocks being feet under water. I decided to take river-right and Tim decided to go river-left…mine looked quite a clean run, apart from the unseen stoper which I just managed to sneak through. I didn’t see how Tim got on, but as I looked round to see him break-out in the same eddy, he was drenched…but in his defence, I think it was a face full of water rather than a roll!

Another couple of waves and a modicum of surfing and we reached Carnage Corner…wow! The normally two-stage falls were washed out and replaced with two massive stoppers (the bottom one also have a secondary stopper folding-in from river-right). As ever, river-left was the best way to run the rapid and for once you didn’t have to worry about avoiding rocks!

The journey down was quick and we broke out into the not-as-big-as-usual eddy below Carnage on river-left. We only hung around for a few mins, though, to allow Tim to attempt a wee surf in the bottow hole…not much joy though as it was just too powerful to get into from the side…

So, that was it…a fairly quick run down the Middle, but great to experience it in high water…and once the snow had stopped, a nice day it was too!