More Biking ?

Yes I'm afraid so.

Today I went back up to the Wildcat on my own to check out the Red Route.

Now I used to mountain bike quite a lot a few years ago, it was all on forest trails. The only technical thing was jumping the centre part of the forest track to line up for cornering on descents.

Today I realised that things have changed.

I started out at the main car park in Golspie although Wildcat now has it's own car park further north, I cycled past it !



The uphill cycle is quite straight forward and not too tiring at all. Part of it is the Cat's Climb which I cycled twice last week.



I could also just see the 20m high walkway on the Black route further on up the hill.



At the top of the climb the red route goes to the left, first downhill then climbing up a forest track.

It was then I got the first glimpse of what downhill is all about. It isn't just going flat out down a wide forestry road as I had believed for the past 20 years.

Through the trees I could see jumps, drop offs and berms.





Soon I arrived at the entrance to 'Valhalla'. I just hoped that I wasn't REALLY on my way there.



Now still having a bit of MTB savvy, I had swapped out my SPD's for platforms and was just about to lower my seat. Doh ! I had put on a rear light the other day in order to take my bike to work. It needed a flat head screwdriver to remove it. I had a cross head, spanners, umpteen allen keys bit no flatty. The seat was staying up.

I started the descent with white knuckles on the brakes.

Hold on. You can't see where these jumps and drop offs are going. Better stop and have a look. JESUS!



I did quite a bit more stopping and looking on my way down. Some I rode others I cheated and some I re-rode. This trail is superb. What I could have done with though, aprt from a lower seat, was soemeone who actually knew what he was doing to go first and I would follow.
The place was deserted. I spent a while looking and redoing a few features but nobody came past me.



Lessons learned.

Make sure you can lower the seat.
Take along an expert.
Don't be such a big jessy.

Highland Wildcat -Blue-

I had a week off work after doing a bit of overtime. The kids were off too but the weather was pretty bad at the start of the week.
It was tidy up the garden and chop wood time.

The weather improved near the end of the week.

So:

The wee fella is really getting into cycling so we tried the Blue route with the 20" wheeled bike that he had. He did very well, but I thought he could have done better given the right equipment, so we decided it was worth upgrading to a better bike.

We traded in his Dawes Redtail for this lovely machine.



After a day riding locally and getting to grips with the gears we headed back up to Golspie.



The Blue route is for families, it starts off very easy, has climbs, wooded sections, stones and switchbacks.

Theres some nice views too.





At the top.



On the way back down now...



Kill those switchbacks.



Oops, cut in too quick...



We were the only car in the Wildcat car park. The red and black routes start from the Town car park. We saw three other cyclists, then another bunch going up the black route - they were pushing their bikes !

Off to practise on our wee trail at the bottom of the road, need to get ready for the red route.

No kayaking this week.

Night Paddle

Tonight we set off from Chanonry Point to do a night paddle.

We headed across and past Fort George where we landed, got fed and watered then Neil produced the glow sticks.





We attached them to the back of our BA's. Neil and Guy also had one on the back of their boats. We followed Guy.

We headed out into the channel and around the red buoy.



The camera has compensated for the lack of light here. On a night setting.



Then back across and past the west side of Fort George towards Ardersier.

This photo was on a normal setting, with flash.



I switched back to night shot so as not to wreck peoples night vision.

We avoided the tidal stream that would have been flowing through the narrow channel at this time, extending the paddle and letting it get darker.

Night paddling is great. I'm waiting for reports in tomorrows papers about strange dancing hoops of light on the water :-)

Decent Sighting.

I almost forgot to mention this.

Got out paddling with the club again last week. Most times I have been out at Chanonry point I have seen the odd dorsal fin or two, The dolphins have been more interested in feeding than in the kayaks.

Last Wednesday I noticed a splash up ahead, as we got closer they were coming out of the water a bit more than usual. I watched for a while but it wasn't until we got moving again that I realised I had my camera.

The dolphins obliged by following us for a wee while, I was on the opposite side to them and took a few shots hoping to catch them as they surfaced.

Here's all I managed.



And even worse :



Ach well, it was more impressive in real life.

Summer Hols Kayaking

Not much to report. With the kids off and plenty to do around the house and garden.
A shed to build, wood to cut and split for seasoning. Loads of trips and things to do with the kids.

I did ride safety boat for some body boarding :-)



We took Big Jessie out to see a boat which was even bigger than her !

Bumpy Bits.

Managed to get out with the club again last night ! The tide at Chanonry was on the way out and there was a fresh breeze blowing against it from the east.

We paddled into the wind towards Fort George. Just around the point at Chanonry the tide runs quite fast, it was a nice paddle into the wind. We were pointing into the waves ( which I like ) but the swell was changing direction and coming more and more from the side.

When hillwalking you know that conditions can change rapidly, when sea kayaking the conditions and sea seem to change by the second - it's great !

Up ahead the waves were breaking on the shore just past the fort, we headed there. Neil took the first group in I stayed out and nearly went in with the bigger waves until Neil pointed out a better route to come in on.

That's what's good about paddling with the club, there's a constant flow of helpful info and advice, both theory and practise.

Once ashore I watched as Neil guided in another paddler.



Straighten up now...



There we go..



Once we had been fed and watered or tea'd and coffee'd we were going to go back to the larger waves but they had disappeared.

There was still fun to be had though, on nearing Chanonry the waters got a bit bumpy again. There was a wee section of overfalls ? which was quickly followed by some lumpy stuff like clapotis. We detoured to the right of this and took a shore route in. ( Sorry my descriptions of the water are poor, something to brush up on )

My boat performed much better tonight, even in the lumpy stuff, no problem at all in that sideways swell. I had two bottles of water fitted to the boat. YES fitted.

I wanted to make sure the bottles wouldn't shift if I decided to go upside down so I glassed in some fixings.



Add a strap and then your preferred ballast.



Doesn't look that pretty but it gives me the reassurance that the bottles won't be tumbling about if the sh*t hits the fan. Still working on the best positioning and number of bottles.

Ya Big Jessie.

A year or two ago I bought a river boat for myself and my son. I used mine to learn to roll and also during three star training.

We went out in the firth in front of the house and a wee paddle on the river in Alness, but quite frankly they weren't being used. I preferred paddling in the sea. What we needed was a double.

A guy at work happened to mention that a colleague of his in the fire service had a double for sale but didn't know much about it. To cut a long story short, I seen it, I tried it, I bought it.

She's called Big Jessie. It fits the description of a North Shore Atlantic 2. Thanks to the UK Rivers Guide Book forum once again.



She's big alright and a few years old by the looks of her.



She's had a few knocks, some of which will need repaired.



I had to remove this security shackle as it had punctured a hole in the boat.





I also need to have a closer look at the rudder which didn't drop down too willingly, that is not at all, but when pulled down it performed REALLY well.



The boat itself is six metres long and has a beam of 65cm. The hull is... just a hull I hear it has now been redesigned.

I paddled it with the wee fella in front and we were getting just over 7 kph. It's very stable both initial and secondary. We paddled it in the flat calm so I can't wait to get out in some waves.



I'll try to address some of the minor defects first though.

Embarrassing Swim

I made it along to the evening club paddle last night. It's at Chanonry point Fortrose which is well known in the area as a good place to spot dolpinins.



It was a wee bit windy and the tide was coming in the same direction. The chart shows overfalls in the area. There was a good turn out, around twenty kayaks. We set off for Fort George into the wind and tide.

When we got there Neil and Rhona split the group. Beginners would carry on up the coast towards Ardersier and the more experienced could do what they wanted at a faster pace. Being armed with a Sirius I opted for the faster trip although I consider myself a beginner ( BCU 3 star river no star sea ! ).

The 'fast' group were to head for the yellow nav buoy to the west of Riff bank.



The paddle was an exposed slog into the wind and tide, but quite enjoyable. It's the roughest conditions I have experienced in the Sirius and she coped well taking the waves wind and swell in her stride as I just took a lot of waves on the chin.

The nav buoy seemed to be slowly drifting away from us, a fellow paddler said it was like a carrot on a stick. The GPS recorded our speed as a lowly 3.5kph.

Two or three paddlers reached the buoy ahead of me and stopped paddling, by the time I reached them they had drifted back a bit. I didn't bother going on to the buoy and just stayed with these paddlers whilst others went past and touched the buoy.

It was now the nice bit, skeg down and free ride home.

I started catching some waves and the speed was now a decent 9.4 kph. Then it happened. I had just been paddling fast with a wave and was slowing to let the next one get me when I felt the boat lean over to the right. I think the next wave had hit at an angle, just when I was putting in a stroke on the left. I tried to put a steadying stroke in on the right but the paddle went too far back and contributed to the rightward motion, at the point of now return my right hand relinquished the grip on the paddle and I went over.

Whilst upside down I realised I had let go of the paddle completely so I had to pull the spraydeck, bugger.

Within seconds Pete was at the scene. I flipped the boat over and as Pete grabbed the cockpit I hooked the leg over and sat back in the boat wearing an embarrassed smile. We were underway again and this time I was paying more attention to what the boat was doing rather than catching waves.

Oh and another thing, what's the point of dry cags and dry trousers ? I was bloody soaked through ! I left my drysuit in the car and put on my Yak touring cag and a pair of Nookie Extreme trousers. Bad choice.



Postscipt.

Big thanks to Pete and the others for their prompt and efficient actions.

Thumbs down for my over confidence and dry tops/ bottoms combo.

From now on it's drysuit unless it's flat calm. If I'm doing wet stuff it will be drysuit or wetsuit.

I think I'll fit some attachments to the inside of the boat so that I can easily attach/detach ballast. The boat was virtually empty and does tend to be a bit tippy like that.

Oh, the dolphins did make an appearance at the end but I only saw a few dorsals and no jumping as I was chatting. My wife will be proud of me :-)

ICC Club Trip: Handa And Loch Laxford

I haven't posted for a while as I have been rather busy. I was lucky enough to have a weekend off when my club were doing a weekend trip. Here's the crack:

We arrived in Scourie around 11 A.M. and set up our tents at the Scourie campsite, four quid a pitch. After a bite to eat we drove down to the shore and loaded up the boats.



I think there were 14 of us give or take, I'm not sure as Rhona was running the trip. I didn't even take a map !

We paddled over to Handa and had another wee bite to eat.







Crossing over to Handa there was a fairly strong northerly so we decided to walk around the island and the other side was indeed very choppy wind over tide. Returning to the boats we set of again.

Around the bottom of Handa and back across to the mainland.



We found a few caves.



Including this big one.



Where we got all the kayaks inside !



After waiting for Mark to get his fish and chips
it was just about Sunday and time to head to Loch Laxford.




Anyone going in at the boathouse OS Grid: 227,477 should note that you need to leave access for the guy who does the fish or mussels or whatever seafood he's into.
We did this with careful parking, however whilst on the water he appeared in his boat and said that he had a lorry coming and the driver didn't do reverse so some of the paddlers had to go back in order to leave the car park completely empty. The wagon only comes on Sunday, you have been warned. The guy is pals with the Duke of Westminister, that's what he said, Westminister.

We paddled past mad Alec's mussels catching setup:



Explored all the wee nooks and crannies and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.





The huge rocks and cliffs.



And stopped opposite the Ridgeway's place for lunch.


What a fabulous weekend in wonderful sunshine and great company. Thanks to you all.