River Spey Descent 2025: Paddling In Nature

I believe this was my tenth descent of the wonderful River Spey. It just gets better!

This time our trip was bookended by poor weather, a storm delayed our start by 24 hours, but we were fortunate to enjoy 4 days good weather for our paddle. This is a reminder that every trip with The Expedition Club is an adventure with uncertain outcomes: we travel through the landscape, and we are subject to the natural environment, both of which can be unpredictable, or, if you prefer anthropomorphisms: capricious.

We are visitors to the natural environment, I seek to introduce my fellow expeditioners to an experience in nature. Paddling a canoe on a river is an experience in nature par excellence. Paddlers must be at one with the water and winds to paddle effectively over a number of days. Surrounded by dramatic landscapes and endlessly surprising wildlife, the sense of being in nature is all encompassing.

During the course of our journey this year, we were privileged to share the river with fledging ospreys, deer coming to the water’s edge to drink, and a curious otter giving us a close inspection from a quiet eddy. These were the highlights, the list is too long to relate in full.

Camping and cooking on the river bank each night, we all enjoyed the immersion of living wild for a few days, listening to the night owls, seeking out comfortable shelter on cool breezy nights, waking to the gentle rippling river for another amazing day on the water.

On the final day we paddled across Spey Bay against a fresh north-westerly, determined to reach the first breakers of the North Sea rolling in all the way from the Arctic Ocean, surrounded by hundreds of sea birds and overflown by another osprey, our final moments on the river were spent under the shelter of the high shingle bank which protects the Bay from the full force of the winds. It was a fitting moment to say farewell to the river …. until next time.