SUCC Olds IrelandScotland 2004

Last summer whilst all sat round waiting to take accountancy exams or term to start it was suggested that we should go boating and drinking in Ireland for a week in December. After much non-planning and plenty of faff we ended up going to the wrong Celtic country and spent a week in and around Fort William in Scotland.

Our star quality team consisted of:

There were also guest appearances from Phil (Chucks mate from Cambridge), Toby, Emma and Jackie "Evil Drinking Pixie #1" Haynes, as well as the Wee Man and half of the hardcore Edinburgh boaters.

The drive up was mundane being punctuated by the discovery that both Mike and Rob had, of their own account and completely separately, walked into petrol stations that morning intending to buy Tangfastics and ended up walking out with Fruit Pastells! The drive got interesting as we passed Loch Lomond and the rain started falling. As Mikey's car stereo blared out "Highway to the Danger Zone" from the Top Gun sound track, we flew across Rannoch Moor with about 10m of visibility and Tony complaining that Mike's car was a "pile of shit, bring this shit on!"

After a quick stop in Safeway's for beer, wine and pizza we headed off to the bunkhouse. Mikey, Rob and Tony decided to welcome the week in by finishing off four bottles of wine between them. Needless to say Mike passed out and had the indignity of being coloured in with a burnt cork by his twin.

Sunday 5th December 2004 – River Orchy

Sunday we got up early and had a full cooked breakfast, well those of us who weren't too hungover did! Then it was off to the Orchy to meet up with the last member of our team, the Cambridge, London and Edinburgh exile: Chuck. On the way over Rannoch Moor in the light it was easy to see the effects of the rain that we had driven through the night before: there was water almost to the road on both sides and the Etive was hooning through at such a rate that the Upper would have been a no-eddy blast.

Arriving at the Orchy we weren't disappointed, the level was just below three on the big gauge and tanking through. For most of us this was a unique experience: Scotland with water! The Orchy at this level is more similar to an Austrian big volume river rather than an English ditch. It is always good to be avoiding one huge stopper only to meet another that you probably don't want to go into either. At the first major rapid, the Chicken Shoot, the hard core (Mike, Rob, Tony, Ben and Chuck) ran the main line and Stevie ran the river left Chicken Shoot. Andy took photos so walked round. Chris set up safety then decided to run the Chicken Shoot, then decided that he didn't like the look of it and decided not to paddle it. Unfortunately he decided this a bit too late and then lost his blades and had to broach himself across 2 rocks and exit his boat.

Steve took the first proper swim of the week at the bottom of a small rapid (sheep trolley gorge maybe) where he fell over and forgot how to roll. Easan Dubha was at the kind of level where any line is asking to get spanked within an inch of your life, so even Chuck and Ben portaged. The same could be said for Eas a Chadiah with both the river left and right lines looking like death on a stick (though the Wee Man has assured us it does go!). The final drop, witches step flipped everyone so we all got some well needed rolling practice!

On Sunday night we had found a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of 2 dolphins that was mainly blue and for a lack of anything else to do it was decided that we should try and complete it before the end of the week. This lead to Tony confirming that he really has become an old man as he got a piece in and would then shout "Get in there, you know you want it, you slag…"

Monday 6th December 2004 – River Pattack

On Monday we decided to try out a new river called the Pattack. This is up past the Spean and flows into the top of Loch Laggan. Whilst trying to find the get out for the river we came across a large BMW full of men wearing white shirts with black lapels. Wondering if they could help us with directions Chuck went over to have a word. As the policemen wound down their window she was heard to say "Oh sorry, we thought you were a car of chauffeurs!" To which there was a stony silence as the officer obviously wondered he should breathalyse her. The get in was up a long farmer's track, past where they film Monarch of the Glen and involved a 2km walk back for the drivers after they had dropped the boats. The start of this section is the 10m monster the Falls of Pattack. As no one wanted to go home in a body bag we left it unrun and carried on down in three groups of three now that we had been joined by Phil. There were a couple of nice grade 3 drops that could of done with more water in them before we got to an easy grade 4 leading into a gorge. Andy messed it up and was sat in the hole below as Mikey knocked him out of the stopper and took a roll for his pains. Chris unfortunately didn't do anything quite so elegant. He went over on the top drop lost his blades (again, too much polo) and had to swim the hole. Suitably admonished he then lost it before the next drop and walked out. Tit.

It had been raining quite a bit so on the drive back from the Pattack we checked the Roy and found that it was tanking through, the get in for the middle spean was about 4 foot under water. Similarly the Spean Gorge was on 5 on the gauge and looking like it would be either very good fun or totally washed out.

Tuesday 7th December 2004 – River Roy and Spean

Having seen the amount of water flowing through the Roy and Spean the night before on Tuesday we decided to head to the Roy Gorge and then do the Spean Gorge on the way home. Following a recurring theme Chris got on the river ran one drop the decided that he fancied a 4 mile walk with his boat down to where Steve was waiting with the cars. The others had a great run down the gorge, portaging the minging grade 5 but then having to carry their boats out at the end up a very muddy path.

It was now that Phil had to leave us in order to work the next day. The rest of us headed back to our second section of the day. By the time we got back to the Spean it had now dropped to 2 on the gauge. It was a nice level with Head banger a fun little drop that managed to fully back loop Ben's RPM. The Cauldron was a proper mess and a bit of a scrape over the river right line. For a bit it looked like Mike was going to spend a while in the stopper but he was fine. At the get out the dam on river right which controls the level of the canal was releasing ensuring a hard ferry glide to get to the other side.

Wednesday 8th December 2004 – River Findhorn

With no more rain and water levels dropping on Wednesday we headed over to the east cost to have a go at running the Findhorn. Ben, Tony, Rob, Mike and Chuck ran it with Steve and Andy shuttling and Chris trying, and failing, to take photos of them from the bank. The river started with Randolphs leap, a grade 5 at certain levels but not this one. All but Ben took the easy line. Ben though in his calm calculated manner ran the Cauldron which everyone else had decided looked far too minging to bother with.

The river then flattened out for a bit, but kept us entertained with some amusing grade 3, however after a while we were back in the Gorge and got to the proper rapids. Triple steps didn't present any particular problems for the group, with Ben showing all the prowess of one of the best blind probes in the business.

Some more nice grade 4 rapids followed, with Tony showing the Huck boaters how to paddle big water in a playboat on the Corkscrew, by managing to actually make the eddy to signal the group down, unlike the others. One portage was made on The Slot rapid, as we all decided that the undercut rocks didn't look particularly appealing.

It was then a float down to the get out, however unfortunately no one had bothered to read the guidebook to find where the get out was, and some faff ensued until we heard the dulcet tones of Mr Webb calling through the woods.

At the get out Steve and Chris were having a stone skimming competition which resulted in Chris getting stones the size of dinner plates to bounce off the surface. Everyone was saying how great the river was until they had to do the 15 minute carry out by which time they weren't so keen on it! In the evening Ben and Tony finally finished the jigsaw to everyone else's relief, well they had almost finished, it turned out that Mikey had stolen one of the three missing pieces so that HE could finish the jigsaw.

Thursday 9th December 2004 – River Spean

On Thursday there was again no more rain so we went to look at the Upper Spean and even though there was water streaming over the top of the lagan dam, no pipes were releasing so the river was too low to run. Tony was disappointed that Damage wasn't there as he was certain that the left hand channel would "go". After much cursing we decided that we would run the Spean Gorge again at a slightly lower level than earlier in the week. Headbanger looked worse then it was and was washing through and the Cauldrons left line was completely dry and easy (so Steve and Chris portaged). It being unseasonably and unfeasibly warm Mike ended up in the water and his boat was floating down the river without him, it was shenanigans season!

After a quick shower and a spray of deodorant we headed off into Fort Bill on the train. Stevie, Andy and Chuck went swimming whilst the rest of us went to the pub to play pool and have a couple of drinks. It was just after we had ordered our first round of drinks that Tony pointed out that Neighbours was still on the TV! After watching the Burton twins play one of the worst games of pool that any of us had seen we headed off to the Grog and Gruel for food and yet more beer before heading off to the train station to go back to Corpach for guess what more beer.

Friday 10th December 2004 – River Coupall

Friday morning several people were feeling a bit worse for wear (although Mikey was genuinely ill whereas everyone else was hungover). After Chris ands Chuck had established that there wasn't enough water in a local burn to run we cleared up and headed over to the Etive for some low water waterfall action. How wrong we were. On the road into Fort Bill we could see that the gauge burns for the Nevis were up so we shot up the Glen Nevis road to see what if it would go. Polduh Falls were mahoosive and a definite no no and it was fair to say that there was quite a bit of water flowing through the river. We followed the road up to where the infamous Mad Mile or "Mildly Angry 200m" was. With this much water it was definitely MAD. Tony and Rob agreed that it all would go except for one rather nasty unportageable, unprotectable drop so with Mike sat in the back of the car feeling shit and Chuck agreeing that it would be a bad idea to run we decided to head off to the Etive to see what was going.

The Etive certainly wasn't low, in fact it was humongous! So high that Triple step was two steps and a minging stopper where the second step should have been. Most of the rest of the river was washed out and then there was the right angle. There was no risk of anyone getting pinned on the right angle, there wasn't one! The flow was going over the rocks you can seal launch off and the ones next to that and the ones next to those! Instead of the normal 8m drop it was more like a 6m drop that lead into a huge boilley mess that was coming up 15m from the fall. So having decided that it probably be a bad idea to run the Etive a select band decided to run the Coupall, one of the larger tribs. This had a "Coupall" of good grade 4 drops next to each other that the bank support photo team of Andy Webb and Chris were able to cover in great detail and Mikey was able to flail around on the bank trying to work out how to get over to them. Ben and Rob made it look hard and Chuck pulled funny faces. As for Tony, well he was being a tart. After deciding that the Grade 5 drop at the bottom was earning a plus and was going to be left alone we deserted the barren North and headed for the bright lights of the City with seven hills.

On the way over Andy's Car had a close encounter with a sheep that left a large dent in his bonnet, bugger. After much faffage and funny looks from people working in off licences we collected Haynso, Toby and Emma and ate large amounts of Chinese take away. Then it was off to the Edinburgh university Students Union Pleasants bar to do what we do best, get drunk and fall over! Chuck introduced us to the Wee Man and a whole bunch more of the Hardcore Edinburgh Boaters. After several rounds of After Shock (1 red, 1 green, 1 blue) and plenty of beer we were all having lots of fun. Tony was explaining that the waterfall he swam in Norway was "only" 8 m not the 18 m that Chuck had told them. When they finally closed the bar (we like Scottish opening hours) we headed off to follow the Edinburgh guys for more beer.