last week i canoed around 100k of the river spey with 5 other guys. we found spot to camp each night on islands in the middle of the river and cooked over the fire in one pot we took with us.

i camped as ever in my wonderful aerial tent.

it was amazing landscape, journey, experience, conversations. each day someone would lead a short reflection – a poem, a metaphor like the flow of the river, or agency in relation to the flow through the paddle.

i was in a boat that capsized so got a good soaking including clothes in a barrel that leaked so we dried them on a makeshift airer over the fire – i have never been so smoky. my camera went in so there will be no photos for a while as it seems to have died. i now need to decide what to do – go for a replacement body (which you can get at a good price now) or jump to mirrorless (which seems very expensive). so it will be mobile photos from me for a while. i don’t regret that – my view is you have to risk taking photos!

[update: i am happy to say my camera has come back to life and even has the photos i took on the first half of the first day in it so i have created an album here – woop woop! ]

i am not that experienced a canoesist so it was a huge learning curve – very different to a trip on lochs. the river is descending so the flow carries you to a degree. the river runs flat and then hits a downhill part. the downhill parts pick up speed which of course means it pulls you towards hazards. the spey included some grade 2 rapids called things like the washing machine! navigating boulders and rocks was an ever present challenge. at times going downhill was bumpy on a wave train a bit like riding a roller coaster which was great. the boats had quite a bit of weight due to the camping gear so there was a lot of bailing out of water to be done.

5 out of 6 of us managed to get a river bug – we boiled and filtered water but in retrospect that wasn’t enough! but that didn’t detract really from an amazing experience.

ross had a gopro camera and edited together a video which he kindly said we could share on socials. so that gives you an idea. thank you ross!