Loch Tay and the River Tay has been a canoe trip which has been on the agenda for many years, as such it was a real privilege to be invited along to help lead a three day journey from Ardeonaig to Aberfeldy during the first week of November.
The first day was short with a quiet float from Ardeonaig itself across the loch in flat calm conditions to a superb beach where we camped for the night. Accommodation, across the board, was under tarps which was great to see! Food cooked; fire lit on a fine starry night - what a start!!
Day two dawned equally still with the loch shrouded in mist. We set off paddling east in the direction of Kenmore, making a long diagonal open crossing quite early in the day back over to the south side of the loch. As the day went on the mist thickened and by mid afternoon we found ourselves paddling in an eerie silence, visually insulated from the world around us. Our destination was Priory Island (Eilean Nam Ban) which we could easily have missed given the low visibility conditions! Our arrival at the island, which is quite small and clearly frequently camped on, was late afternoon. A repeat of the previous night took place with tarps swiftly built and a blazing campfire established.
We were quite a large group and as such divided into three sub-groups to run the river the following morning. My group set off first and after a short coaching section under the bridge at Kenmore we quickly came upon the first and most entertaining rapids on this stretch of the river in the area of "Chinese Bridge". Everyone did well handling the loaded boats down the bouncy wave trains - great fun! Unfortunately no pictures of this part of the journey. The level was such that we arrived promptly in Aberfeldy egressing the river just upstream of Wade's Bridge. It was nice to spend a little time in Aberfeldy, a place I've not visited for over 20 years - looking forward to repeating this journey...
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