Bushcraft, Wild Camping, Canoeing And Nature: Journeying Down Scotland's Longest River

A multi-day, wild camping canoe trip down Scotland's longest river, the River Tay. We travelled light and put bushcraft and campcraft to good use on each overnight camp. It turned out to be an epic, highly memorable trip for a number of reasons...

First, even though we were early in the season, we had great, sunny weather. But the easterly wind was against us and it had been a poor winter for snow, so there wasn't much water in some of the tributaries. Even so, there were some wonderful wild camps, along the waterways and by the side of lochs.

I'd canoed sections of the Tay before but on this journey I wanted to do a wild camping trip along the river from start to finish. So we started not far from the headwaters of the river, near the village of Crianlarich, actually starting on the River Fillan, which flows into the River Dochart. This water ends up in Loch Tay, which then flows out down the River Tay proper. Our intention was to go all the way to at least Perth, where the river becomes tidal. Then, with the right conditions, we'd undertake the tidal estuary section as far as Broughty Ferry. Things didn't quite work to the plan, as you'll see in the video....

For this trip I invited Paul "Spoons" Nicholls to join me and the intention for him was for this trip to increase his experience of multi-day canoe tripping. Spoons had canoed the River Spey with Ray Goodwin and me but the Tay was going to be a more varied, and in some ways more difficult journey, with us having to apply a wider range of canoe journeying techniques, including lining and portaging as well as paddling. There were small streams up to big bouncy rapids to negotiate, calm river sections of crystal clear water as well as at least one large lake, Loch Tay.

This trip exceeded our expectations, providing a magical mix of canoeing, nature and wild camping, with ample opportunity to apply everyday bushcraft techniques along the way.

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