July jollies

Following on with my montage of paddling, I’m now on July.

This should have been a fairly quiet start to the month paddling wise for me as I had been abandoned. Hubby dear was off for a wee jaunt round St Kilda – without me!!!

So what does an abandoned paddler do? Why go paddling of course! Tuesday evening was a loch session, Wednesday evening a sea session, Thursday was a beginners trip for LSKC out under the bridges, round and back again.

Dried my kit on Friday!

At the put in, Pitlochry

Saturday I had a lovely OC trip down the Lower Tummel from Pitlochry down to Ballinluig with Kirkcaldy Kayaker.  It was great getting 1 to 1 coaching, lots of ferry / reverse ferry gliding, setting and surfing and all in roasting sunshine, finished off with a large ice cream – yum!

Stand up paddle surfing

A St Kilda puffin

Hubby dear came home that evening complete with a puffin for me!

 

CWW waiting for high tide?

Simon going off the wall

Sploosh

CWW's turn

Next morning, we were off to Stanley for a wee play in the river boats. It’s a while since I’ve been out in the river boats, still it was good being out even if I was a bit wary as to whether the old roll was going to act up or not. A wee try at the beginning of the day worked well, whereas a wee try at the bottom of Thistlebrig worked, but not with such “flair!”

Taily time

Bow stalling

  Stanley one day, Bass rock the next!

Later in the month we had a lovely evening trip out past Inchcolm, on to Oxcars, then across to Inchmickery, where we sat drifting and watching the Puffins for a while – I can never get enough of Puffins!

The month was finished off with a lovely evening trip out from Kinghorn - we really have had some cracking weather this summer!

Extreme dressing, Young Trevor looking for a dunking or just being a boil in the bag?

Lots of sea urchins and starfish

Heading back to Kinghorn

 

Lower Tummel 14/8/11





After a lovely weekend spent up at Glenmore lodge courtesy of a 3rd place in a Glenmore/pyrhanna competition, we (hubby dear and myself) decided to break the journey back home by stopping off to meet up with a few members of the club who were training for their 3* on the river. The trip was supposed to be at Stanley, but due to an abundance of rain, the level was a bit high for the group, so the put in was duly changed to the lower Tummel at Pitlochry. I've paddled the upper Tummel a good few times, but never the lower Tummel. I was looking forward to a nice gentle paddle to start working off the excess grub that had been scoffed up at Glenmore.

We started off by paddling up to the dam, where there were a few wee waves to catch. This being the first time Colin has been on a river for what is possibly years !!!!, I reckon once he remembered what he was doing, he quite enjoyed himself. He might even get back out within the next 5 years. We bobbed down gently, with the 3* group honing their skills for their assessment the following week.

A quick lunch, back onto another wave for a wee play, then it was down to Ballinluig to the getout. A rather pleasant wee river to finish off a lovely weekend.