Culra and Corrour Munros Weekender

21/06/2024 1

Being 50+, I got me one of Scotrail’s Club 50 railcards. The main advantage of this is that several times a year they run a 6-week long promotion that offers off-peak return travel anywhere in Scotland for £17. A recipe for a cheap weekend away if ever there was one. I booked ahead as I needed a bike space as well. The 22nd June was the solstice this year and I found myself camping out on our highest local hill Read More

3 Day Solo Packrafting Trip in the Fisherfield, Scotland

21/08/2023 3

Intro I had spent the previous 9 days hill walking, 15 Munros for my second Munro round and 1 Corbett. My legs were wrecked and needed a rest, so what better solution than to use the arms instead for a packrafting trip in the Fisherfield?! I’d last been in this area some 5 years previously, and it had rained constantly, so I had bailed east for some sunshine hill bagging instead. This did at least mean that I was able Read More

Highlands Holiday 2020

20/08/2023 0

The run up to this years holiday was not exactly plain sailing. Firstly, it was supposed to have taken place the month before in Switzerland (bloody COVID), secondly work got in the way – I always said that I would never let work affect play, well I failed ending up working an extra week including the weekend before finally managing to escape. Plan was to go find myself a lonely glen with no mobile signal and haul up where no Read More

Autumn Corbet and Loch Bagging

13/10/2019 0

Not having been away for a few weeks due to our selling the house and with the house now sold it was time to take advantage of a half-decent weather forecast. I headed up to the car park at Cairngorm, and got some sleep prior to a planned combo bike and hike the following day. I relocated the van at Glenmore and hopped on the bike past Glenmore lodge and onto the track towards Bynack More which was like bloody Read More

Holiday Blog

08/08/2018 0

  I had two weeks off work, and much planned. I was to be mostly solo on this holiday bringing the advantage of only having my own itinerary to worry about, and hoped to get some pack rafting, cycling and hill walking done. Weekend 21st/22nd The holiday started with good company at the Clachaig. I went for a paddle around Loch Leven, while Lucy (my other half) went to recce a future marathon she had signed up for. The paddle Read More

Ardnamurchan – Loch Sunart and Loch Shiel

02/07/2018 0

Packrafting has taken a back seat to Hillwalking for the past few weekends, so this weekend it was time to get back into the boat. I have a wee list at home of trips that I want to do and area’s that I want to explore by boat. The Ardnamurchan, specifically Lochs Sunart and Shiel (Aye, I know the latter is not strictly Ardnamurchan!) were two such area’s. The tides were right this weekend with High tide at ~8AM and Read More

Loch Ba and Loch Laidon Linear – Bike, Boat, Train

14/05/2018 2

I’ve been wanting to do the linear boat trip across Rannoch Moor via Loch Ba and Loch Laidon for a while. Finally, this last weekend the weather and the wind was favorable so off I set. I opted for a one night wild camp, meaning that the timings matched for a Lazy start and the train back from Rannoch Station the following day. [Skip right to the end for the video! | Find the full photoset here] I dumped my Read More

Loch Katrine

26/04/2018 0

The forecast was decent for Saturday, but rubbish for Sunday so I could not be arsed to drive very far this weekend. Against my better judgement, I paid Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Park’s ‘Wild Camping Tax’ – £8 to stay at the far end of ‘Three Lochs Forest drive’ near Loch Katrine. To get a spot on here in the summer requires booking a month in advance, but short-notice spots are available out of season. As one of the Read More

Cairngorm Capers

12/11/2017 0

Somehow I have managed to avoid the A9 for the past 5 months; my last trip up that way being to a mates leaving do who headed off to Canada. Early this year I had 4 weekends away on the trot up in the north west – maybe I was just sick of the A9!? This weekend the local mountaineering club headed up to Mill Cottage near Kincraig. The location is handy for Glen Feshie, and another club member Colin Read More

Loch Shiel and Loch Sunart

16/10/2017 0

This weekend I was at Strontian on the Ardnamurchan peninsula with the Ochils Mountaineering Club staying at Sunart Camping. The weather forecast was pretty naff, but I did manage a bike ride, and a couple of trips in the packraft on Lochs Shiel and Sunart. Not as ambitious as my original plans, but pack rafts and howling gales ain’t a marriage made in heaven! Saturday Saturday dawned OK, I even saw (fleetingly) a patch of blue sky! The rain started Read More

Packrafting – Loch Bi To Loch Sgiopoirt (South Uist)

07/08/2017 0

During a recent trip to South Uist, I had a few outings by Packraft and bike combo. Generally I have abandoned the bike at the end (complete with panniers and dry clothes), and then driven to the start. Its a great way of making linear boat trips with the wind/tide when you are on your own. This trip was one I saw on the map, and then went and googled to find that it had been previously blogged and was Read More

Eriskay Linear Paddle

05/08/2017 0

I had been cycling on Barra earlier, arriving back on Eriskay, at about 16:30. The weather remained fine, and the wind/tides were about right so a linear paddle in the packraft was the plan. I locked the bike up at the Calmac pier on Eriskay complete with panniers and cycling kit and set off around the coast to Orasaigh in the van. This took eons as I ended up following an extra slow Dutch van whose driver did not appear Read More

Isle of Barra Circuit and Summit

05/08/2017 0

Due to a cheaper ferry crossing, I opted to get the boat from Mallaig to Lochboisdale on South Uist rather than from Oban to Castlebay on Barra. I still wanted a tour of Barra however, and the isle is compact enough to allow for a decent day tour by bike. I got the early ferry from Eriskay on South Uist to Barra, heading clockwise around the island. This was not my first visit, having previously toured the Outer Hebrides by Read More

Jura: Gulf of Corryrvrecken

30/07/2017 0

I had many must-do’s while I was on Jura, and since the Paps of Jura were still shrouded in cloud, today I decided on the Corryvrecken.  The Gulf of Corryvrecken to give it its full name is a 1KM wide expanse of water sat between the north end of Jura and the uninhabited island of Scarba. It sports a tidal flow that can reach 16KPH, one of the highest tidal flows on the planet, as the sea is forced through Read More

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