River Spey Learning Journey

We’ll spend four exciting days together, journeying along one of Scotland's most iconic canoe routes, using a wide range of skills that take us beyond standard paddling.

Our team will work with you to develop your traditional canoe skills in a real-world environment, where using these skills will significantly enhance your enjoyment and experience.

On the first day of our trip, we’ll spend the day on Loch Insh and the Upper stretches of the Spey, where we can get to know each other and refresh our skills before spending the night in a local campsite with limited facilities.

The following morning, we’ll continue our trip down the river to Spey Bay from Loch Insh, wild camping the rest of the way. Our team will guide and support you during the journey, ensuring an incredible experience.

During the trip, if you want, you’ll gain your British Canoeing Multi-Day Touring, Open Water Touring and Canoe Progressive awards, as well as earn lots of valuable experience which will help you on your pathway to both Open Water and White Water Open Canoe (and even advanced) Leader awards.

Do you need to be a pro boater?

No, it’s called a Learning Journey because learning is a big part of our trip. So what level do you need to be?

Living in the outdoors?

Firstly you’ll need to be comfortable spending time out in the elements.

Scotland is famous for being able to have all seasons in one day, but more often than not it's cold and damp, so you’ll need to be content spending time in that and taking anything else as a bonus. 

Padding skill?

We’ll be on the river (where we will be paddling class/grade 1/2, and working through bigger stuff) so having spent some time in those environments before that would be great, as it’s always nice to be able to have brain space for learning and not just surviving!

Solo vs tandem?

It doesn’t matter, but if you want to be tandem you may need to bring a friend!

It’s nice to have a mix on big trips as it gives people the chance to explore both options, so we may jump around during our trip.

What to bring 

Not too much but not too little!?

It’s always a real challenge when packing for expeditions to decide what is needed and what is unnecessary, on this trip, we’re going to take care of the food, but you may still want to bring some snacks and extras.

We’re big fans of keeping our kit fairly light as if we have to portage the lighter the kit the easier the task, so let us break it down then.

Check out our full Kit List here.

Day 1 - 5 -Loch Insh to Spey Bay

*This is our ideal itinerary however it may change when we're on the go as we'll work with the weather and pick campsites best suited to us on each day.