New River

The River Earn has been on my list to paddle for a few years and I really don't know why I haven't gotten on it before, its an absolutely beautiful stretch of river. The clues were in the rivers description from the    'Scottish Canoe Touring' guidebook.

'The Earn is a long and possibly under-rated river, winding its way amongst various different types of scenery across the county of Perthshire. It leaves Loch Earn in the west, and at first is tiny and interesting waterway amongst a wooded valley. At Comrie, a popular tourist village, the Earn widens out, and is nearly always canoeable from here,the trip down to Crieff, a spa town, the most popular for a days paddle. (This is the section we did). After Crieff, the river gains in water, and has various interesting weirs down to Kinkell Bridge. Lower down, the river winds almost interminably amongst agricultural countryside, with a final tidal stretch to join the Tay'

 The car park at the access point in Comrie provided some questions!

 Grant on the weir just down from the start

 Roger on the same weir

 The river flattened out providing some spectacular scenery

 Lovely wooded areas lined the banks

 We picked another cracking day for it!

 Roger and Grant in gentle conversation

 Lunch stop with a view

 Apart from a small single track road a few hundred meters away the nearest main road was 2km away at this point, absolute bliss and silence

 Approaching a small gorged section

 Am I looking pretty chilled and relaxed?

 On the approach to the last rapid before entering Crieff

  Roger on the last rapid of the day in Crieff

Snow and then some

With almost 5 days of snow Perthshire is covered in a blanket of the white stuff. Saturday was looking crisp and clear with lots of sunshine, most people, given the chance would have opted for the ski resorts but I knew, and was right that they would be super busy. With that in mind I went canoeing and surprisingly there was no one else on the river!! Roger, Callum, Niall and myself headed to the Perthshire Garry at Killiecrankie and....................... Pictures speak a thousand words!

 Kitting up in Killiecrankie, temperature was hovering at -6

 Looking down the 'Pass of Killiecrankie' down to the river

 The snow made moving the boats to the river very easy

 Roger taking his boat for a walk

 Nearly down at river level

 First challenge was to get to the water through the ice!

 I sat looking at the scenery for about 15min

 Good thickness of ice under the blanket of snow

 Making a route for the others

 The rapid at soldiers leap was unbelievable, never seen it like this before, and given the drop was running well just above this, made it even more bonkers, There was about 5 inches of snow then 4 inches of ice, 3ft of slush then the water flowing underneath!

 Callum had his optimism with him, trying to paddle up stream

 Just me

 Beginning to descend the river

 And the scenery just kept getting better and better

 Not a bad place for a spot of lunch

 Callum

 Keeping hydrated became a challenge!

 Any spray from the rapids almost instantly froze on everything

 Hitting eddies amongst the snow

 Callum attempting to put his frozen spraydeck on!!

 Approaching the Garry Bridge

 Looking forward to getting into the sun as the temperature was beginning to drop quickly

 Arriving in to Loch Faskally

 Callum and the Linn of Tummel 

As the sun goes down, all loaded up ready to drive home and sit in front of the fire

2 Numbers 1's

Two number ones in one day. First work day of 2018 and first canoe of 2018. The thermostat said minus 10 so what else would I do but canoe to work with Grant! It certainly set the bar quite high for canoeing this year!

 08:30 and just getting light up at Kenmore 

 Sun rise on Ben Lawers

 Ready for the off

 Mill pond on Loch Tay

 The mist rising off the water and Ben Lawers looking through the bridge 

 Rapids before 'Chinese Bridge'

 Finding Grant amongst the mist

 The end of the River Lyon frozen

 Not going to get very efficient strokes in there!

 Looking up the River Lyon

 The scenery just kept giving

Heavy frost on the trees

 The mist was freezing on my beard!

The sun coming over the hill as we approach the office