Great Glen Canoe Trail

The plan was set. A three day trip up the Great Glen Canoe Trail. I had always fancied doing a coast to coast and this was going to be an easy one....
Mark down at Brookbank Stockport got roped in and I made a plan. The Rota was adjusted and we had managed to get three days off in a row and at the same time.
The plan was to travel up to Inverness and drop a vehicle there and then down to Fort Bill to the start point on Sunday and then the trip proper would start on Monday and last till Wednesday.

Our start point at Gairlochy Lock Gates. We spent the Sunday night here and in the morning had to head back to Corpach to get our Caledonian Canal license. You need this to travel up the great glen trail but it is free and you can purchase for £8.00 a key that will open all the toilet blocks at the Canal Locks.

Loch Lochy. The second biggest Loch on the trip at 17km long. We hada light head wind but it was a nice enough paddle and was paddled in approximately 2 and a half hours.

After Loch Lochy you get on to the Canal proper again. A section known as the Avenue. The first set of Lock Gates we carried round but the rest of the Portages we use a lightweight Trolley that you can see on Marks boat in the picture above.

After The Avenue Loch Oich opens up in front of you. Great Glen Water Park is on your left and although one of the Shortest Lochs on the trip it is very scenic. We got to the far end which is where we had decided to camp. After stretching our necks looking along the shore we found a really nice little spot with great views. With a nice dinner and a wee dram we watched the sun go down. 25km today. A great start.

Tuesday dawned flat calm! Today would be the big push. Finish Loch Oich. (about 1.5km) Canal and the as far up Loch Ness as we could. The boats we performing well. Mark had the Tahe Marine Reval and I had a North Shore Polar. The carried all the gear we needed and handled well with it. The big test could be today with any wind on the 35km or so of Loch Ness.

The biggest portage of the trip is at Fort Augustus and gave us a chance to stretch our legs and take in some food and drink. The weather had been good to us so far with only a little rain in the morning. Loch Ness was next.

Loch Ness was flat!!! We moved across to the south shore. The loch went through spells of being like glass to having a little wind. Really nice easy paddling. We ended up hitting over 30km.

Lunch stop Mark took a chance to check our progress. We finished day two looking for a decent campsite. There are very few on the south shore of Loch Ness. We ended up on a rocky shore with the tents perched up on a banking. Comfy......


The final morning and the final 18 - 20km push to the finish at Dochgarroch. we woke up to a steady South Westerly blowing. Great a tail wind. We left camp before 8am and got to Urquhart Castle before 9am.

The top end of Loch Ness looking down to where we had come from. We got finished about midday on Wednesday and got back to Perth by 4pm.

The total trip time paddling was just over 14hrs. We did 75km and average just over 5km per hour. our Maximum speed was 11km. Catching waves on the last day. It was a great trip and I highly recommend it to anyone looking at getting out in a Touring Kayak. We took Composite Sea kayaks but you could quite easily take a bit longer and complete it in any one of our Plastic Touring/ Sea Kayaks or an Open Canoe.

For more info on the Trail check out the following links

SCA Guide.
Great Glen Canoe Trail Facebook Page
British Waterways
Caledonian Canal Skippers Guide