Posted on March 27, 2012 in Trip Reports by Dàibhidh 
Well, it’s been a bit quiet on here for the last few weeks; that’s ’cause I got married on 17 March!
Don’t worry, I’ll be getting back to the kayaking soon though…
Posted on March 04, 2012 in Trip Reports by Dàibhidh
Nice wee dash down the Lower Findhorn with Matt, Stewart, Victoria and Titch (plus a few intermittent others from ICC).
Really low, but it was the only water about…so much so, that half of the paddlers in Scotland seemed to be there and the car park was choc-a-block!
Randolph’s Leap was low, but four of us ran it and it went reasonably smoothly. Tripple Steps was a nice level, although a group there doing 5 Star Leader assessment (i.e. inspection over-kill) slowed our pace down and split our group for a while. Once the route was clear, our tail-end-Charlies headed down, with Titch pulling off a fairly awesome roll at the mid-point.
Oh, and talking of Tripple Steps, while I was taking pics of the middle step, one of 5 Star group (possibly an assessor actually) knicked my boat without asking to chase after one of their own boats after a swim – not cool, not cool at all – if it was a swmmer, fair enough, but a boat set loose due to poor safety cover is another thing (and it would just have got stuck in an eddy given the level was so low).
Anyhow, after getting over that minor irritation, we trooped down to Cork Screw. Again, low, but the left line went nicely enough. Matt did half of it backwards, I did half of it without my paddle after jamming it in a rock and John, who joined us momentarilty from the other ICC group, showed us all what a clear line looks like.
A nice few bimbly rapids later, Matt decided to run The Slot, while the rest of us portaged. One day I’ll give it a shot for sure, but didn’t look that nice today…I was more comfortable taking a photo!
After the torturous get-out, a quick change and then off to Logie Steading for coffee and cake; aaaaah, a perfect end to a day on the water!!
Posted on February 19, 2012 in Trip Reports by Dàibhidh
Chasing water yet again – what’s with this winter?!
So, in the hope of getting some form of paddle I headed to the Blackwater with Matt and Caz. Cold was the word of the day, oh, along with scrape!
We scraped down the river and ran most of the drops, but it didn’t really feel like a proper paddle; never wanting to be short-changed, we then headed up Strathconon and paddled the Meig Gorge.
Like the Blackwater, it was low and a scrape. Lines, well they were either tight or not really there – it really needs a Thursday compensation flow to be worthwile - but it was worth it for the simple reason that it was boating!
