The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
‘We dragged boats, bags and paddles over the rocks’
James Henderson picks up his kayak and hikes for a packrafting adventure on the wild River Tay in Scotland
“If it wasn’t hard work, everyone would be doing it.” So said Tom McLay, our river guide, as we came to the end of a long day’s paddling as part of a “packrafting” expedition in Scotland. The trip, a descent of the River Tay, was arranged by Secret Compass – an expedition company that generally takes groups to far-flung places. However, with the mountains and rivers of Madagascar, Yemen and Kamchatka off limits, it has turned its attention closer to home.
This year it is staging two packrafting trips on the River Tay – packrafts being one-person inflatable boats that pack down small enough to fit into your rucksack until you reach your river. Then you inflate the boat, strap on your equipment and paddle off downstream.
We gathered in Tyndrum, a blinkand-you’ll-miss-it stop on the railway to Fort William, in a party of nine. There were three couples and three independent men: Michael, an American fashion executive; Tom, the guide; and myself. Aged from our 20s to our 50s, we were software engineers and singers, lawyers and chefs, English, Scots, American, South African, novice paddlers and experienced, gregarious and reserved, kit monsters and jokers, all excited to get back to the outdoors.
With any expedition you would expect an aim, or mission, and ours was to track Scotland’s longest river from source to sea. We would pick up the rising waters on the flanks of Ben Lui, hike alongside them until we were able to put in our boats and then paddle 80 miles east cross-country, to the tidal limits at the town of Perth.
It was clear and sunny as we set off on day one. (In fact, the week continued with near-flawless good weather, something unusual in my long experience of Scotland.) We broached the foothills of Ben Lui, picked up a ridgeline, passed a few residual patches of snow, clambered up rocks and, eventually, at 3,641ft, stood on the summit.
What a magnificent feeling after so many months of restrictions. I could see for miles across the roll and sweep of the glaciated mountains; to the west coast and Mull beyond, south over the jostling peaks of Argyll and north to Ben Nevis; and east through the ranges where we would paddle downstream. We descended, collecting the babble and chuckle of the nascent river.
You’d expect a briefing on an expedition, too, but Tom was low-key, parsing information as required rather than risk an early overload. Only that evening were we were introduced to our boats.
Packrafts sit near the bottom of the food chain in the view of most paddlers, but for expeditions they are ideal: versatile, unexpectedly robust and extremely forgiving, so that relative novices can take on rapids that would otherwise require weeks of training. The only
issue is that they don’t move very fast.
Next morning we continued along the river, called the Connonish at this stage, on a section of the West Highland Way. As overloaded as camp followers, huge rucksacks swinging with paddles, life jackets and boats, we laboured through tussocked meadows and the variegated greens of birch and pine. Tom wanted us on the water as soon as possible, so he went off to investigate, returning with: “Well, if I get lost, I can always listen out for Anna’s laugh.”
At a pool we inflated the rafts, lashed on our gear, and started paddling. It was still shallow, so a certain “bum-shuffle” got us over some rocks. Elsewhere, we had to hop out and drag the boat. Birdlife was all around – oystercatchers screeching at us to go away, and swallows dipping for flies and retreating to their nests in the mudbanks.
We were carrying all we needed to travel independently for six days, so at around 6.30pm Tom selected a section of river bank and we pitched our tents, organised ourselves and relaxed for a while. The evening routine centred on our meal: Tom boiled water and we gathered to chat while our pouches of expedition food rehydrated, sharing stories and getting to know one another.
The rhythm of the expedition really developed the next day; it’s true to say there was a lot of paddling (the sunny weather ensured a slow flow). We meandered between mountains, on filigree streams that opened out into Loch Dochart and Loch Lubhair, before reentering endless serpentine bends. It was hard work, but eventually rapids appeared, the icing on the cake.
Tom filtered in some rules – manoeuvre into upstream “vees”, the fastest water; avoid downstream vees (which herald submerged rocks). We weaved among the boulders, lined up carefully, and skittered and splashed over the descents. By the time we reached Killin, we were drawn, cold and longing for a rest – but after portaging the huge Falls of Dochart, we were faced with a disheartening choice: a two-mile hike hefting all our kit, or a section of canyoning. We opted for the latter, scrambling and wading, dragging boats, bags and paddles over the rocks, to get it all done.
An hour later, on a lovely sandy beach at the western end of Loch Tay, happily fed, we were musing on the day’s endeavour. This was the moment when Tom spoke about hard work. His words capture the essence of an expedition, acknowledging the effort but also hinting at implicit rewards.
It’s not that Secret Compass has an intention to make you suffer, but their expeditions are purposefully different from a holiday on the beach, in terms of the challenge and the teamwork, the outlay and the reward. You can expect physical graft – we were paddling for eight hours a day – and likely some highs and lows. These things draw people together. At times everyone has to muck in, working to make it happen.
Interestingly the company undertakes a quiet “vetting” procedure during the applications, to forewarn clients of the physical effort and possible discomfort and to ensure they have the mental resolve required.
We certainly needed some on day four, a full crossing of Loch Tay, 13 miles in boats that won’t move at less than 2mph – at times, into an outrageous headwind. We paddled and paddled, debated ideas, bounced through angry grey squalls rattling across the water, made one another laugh, and dreamed of ice cream. And then we paddled again. Geoff sang to Karen: we’re not sure why exactly, but apparently it made her move faster.
After an unbudging landscape of mountains, next we were sliding over billion-year-old rocks at 4mph, through a gun barrel of slate-grey water and
huge deciduous trees. Mallards made a break for it at every turn and an osprey scoped the fish jumping around us. Everywhere the stream broke into flurries of white water: we spent the morning racing past boulders, running chutes and avoiding “boils” – like hidden hands that grabbed at our bows – and bouncing our way through the wave trains.
At Grandtully were the largest rapids of the trip, a grade 3 roller-coaster 150yds long: Tom encouraged us to run them, so we dismounted and took 30 minutes to size up the various hazards. He recommended a line, and one by one we left to “saddle up”.
My turn came. I paddled to the far bank, zoned in, and slid into the maelstrom: the world eclipsed into allencompassing surround sound, a white roar of water. I flailed and paddled like a maniac, just five actions in mind – look right/lean left into the main stream, cross it to avoid rock one, swing left around boulder two, then right again to avoid rock three. Amid the white boil, I counted the rocks racing by, left-right-left… and, as life’s normal colour and sound resumed, I was surprised to discover I was still upright.
Our final camp was in a copse of larch pocked with bluebells and wild garlic, just beneath the A9: civilisation was encroaching. Beyond here, next morning, the river banks were husbanded with grand houses and waterfront hotels. Between the copper beeches, oaks and chestnuts, lawns flashed with crimson and purple rhododendrons and the acid yellow of gorse. There was a lad having his first lesson in casting a fly.
The river was alternately lively and supine: we ran races that were undermining islands, ripping the rocks from the bank and clattering them down the flow; next we were becalmed for a meandering mile, creeping past fishermen as unobtrusively as possible. Beavers have been reintroduced and we could see their tell-tale gnawing. And there, lazing in a pool, was an otter.
The final stretch into Perth captured the whole trip in miniature: the graft – paddling flat water – and the excitement – restless water, hatched with pyramids that slid and slapped into one another, forming into chutes. It culminated in rapids half a mile long, where we dodged left and right, bouncing down the wave lines, one after another.
Even to the end it was hard work, but it is in Tom’s silent inference that the value lies – the graft of paddling and the shared hardship bring a sense of accomplishment that makes an expedition more than a simple holiday. It was something we were happy to celebrate over dinner, socially distanced once more, on our last night in Perth.