Wet & Windy in West Highlands, Scotland June 2024

Seven intrepid CKC paddlers headed to Onich, Scotland for what turned out to be a wet and windy week! Weblink for the routes we did can be found at the bottom of the blog.

Our northbound journeys didn’t go as smoothly as expected. David had the pleasure of becoming a photographer of Gilly & Corinne’s yoga on the motorway, which resulted in new friendships being made amongst the stationary cars!

Day 1 Loch Linnhe We went to Rockhopper, Corpach to hire kayaks & additional kit that we needed for our week. We had naively thought that the mountains would shelter us from a westerly wind, but that turned out not to be the case! The wind funneled down Loch Linnhe, as a F3-4 headwind, impeding our progress south west towards Onich. The kayaks that we hired took some getting used to, and were also shorter (~15ft), so not as fast as our usual CKC/longer (~17ft) kayaks. We attempted to tow to improve the group’s overall speed but realised we were not going to make the tidal gate through the Corran Narrows. So five landed and tried out different group shelters at a layby off the A82, whilst two paddled through the narrows to get the car to initiate the car shuttle to get paddlers and kayaks home. Needless to say we were all tired, and it was much later than planned by the time we got home!

Day 2 – Shuna, Castle Staker & Port Appin
We had an easier day’s paddling, including spotting jellyfish, and seals. We launched from a layby into the Sound of Shuna, paddled down the west side of Shuna, around to Castle Stalker (before it dried out!), before landing at Port Appin. We can report that the Carrot Cake at the pub at Port Appin, made Corinne very happy. She was keen to sample some of the foods she enjoyed when she lived in London (and regularly paddled with CKC), but can’t get so easily in France! Sitting in sunshine at Port Appin was the best location we had in the week to wait whilst a car shuttle was happening =:) .

Day 3 – Caledonian Canal The winds still continued to be strong – so six of the group paddled north along the Caledonian canal, starting above Neptune’s Staircase. This included an unexpectedly long portage at the North East end of the canal. At the end of paddle, which was sheltered location – some took the opportunity to improve their rescue skills.

Day 4 Nessie at Castle Urquhart The winds were too strong for the group to paddle and so this became mainly a sight-seeing day. Corinne had wanted to see Nessie and so 4 of us headed off to Castle Urquhart to meet her. Whilst David sampled paddling in the wind, under the watchful gaze of 2 checking on him from the comforts of being land-based!

Day 5 Loch Leven We launched from Cuilcheanna beach heading east to then go through the Ballachulish narrows (under the Ballachulish bridge) and into Loch Leven. This time we easily made our tidal gate through the narrows. By now we were used to paddling with the odd drop of rain, and some wind. We were progressing well so we landed near Ballachulish coop, to see what the amazing Stiff Peaks patisserie (and Coop) had to offer for us to supplement our lunch with. After launching again we visited the burial islands. For most of our paddle this day we were predominantly blown downwind (eastwards) F4-5 with ever changing magical and dramatic skyscapes in front of us.

Day 6 Too-oo Windy! The last day of our week based at Onich, was also too windy to paddle. So some of us went for a walk around Inchree waterfall and discovered A LOT of rain had fallen recently, since the waterfall and river were clearly in spate!

Thanks go to everyone for their contribution to a happy week, from coordinating meals and shopping, planning paddling routes, transporting kayaks, driving, and being cheery in spite of the weather!

All in all a happy week, and in spite of the rain and wind, our 5th day of paddling which featured both rain and wind (coming unpredictably from different directions during the paddle!) was our favourite paddling day!

If you want to see our paddling routes – these can be seen here: