Back from Scotland!

This afternoon I returned from a fantastic seakayaking-holiday in West-Scotland. Govert and I paddled two weeks in the Oban region: a paddlers' delight!
West-Scotland has a reputation of being a rough, windy, cloudy, humid and chilly place and is known for challenging paddling. The Scotland we experienced in the last two weeks was friendly, calm, sunny, mostly dry and warm. Challenging paddling conditions were a bit hard to find, but it was great that we could paddle anything we wanted: of our 13 days on the West-Coast - we paddled 12 days - almost 300 km's.


Our program included 3 multiple-day trips (coloured tracks on the Mapsource map):
- 4 days on the West-coast of Mull (Ulva, Gometra, Tresnish Isles, Staffa, Iona) = red track;
- 4 days from Oban to Jura and back (Seil, Belnahua, Lunga, Scarba, Luing, Shuna, incl. the Grey Dogs and the Corryvreckan) = blue track;
- 2 days around Lismore and Shuna Island = green track.

We also made some day trips (not indicated on the map):
- circumnavigating Kerrera Island (and shopping in Oban);
- playboating with empty seakayaks in the spring tide in the Falls of Lora.
As a little intermezzo between all this kayaking we walked upon the Ben More, the highest mountain of the Isle of Mull - 967 m. - our first Munro!

Next week I will post more pictures and a day by day report. The Picasa-webalbum (Firstlook Scotland) gives a first impression.

firstlook scotland

Special thanks to Douglas, Maarten and Patrick for their information and advises about paddling in Scotland!