from kris;

I spent the Easter Hols up on the Isle of Mull, it’s not exactly well known for its white water but we’d taken up a couple of boats anyway mainly for messing around on the local loch. So rain and snow melt combined with Rich’s almost annoying optimism and enthusiasm meant we were driving up alongside some river hidden by trees, we’ed randomly picked off the map (still no idea what it was called). Getting on bouncy grade 2/3 was ok but not great with wind and sleet lashing across the river, then things came good. The wind dropped, sleet stopped, sun came out and the river narrowed from15 to 2 meters wide with a sweet horizon line. A quick scout then 500 meters of fantastic water followed, as the river dropped into a gorge about 4 meters deep, which was like a log flume, tight turns, waves bouncing off the wall, lots of holes to boof over, the kind of thing that makes you laugh all the way down. A couple of hundred meters down steam and a sweet s-bend followed, with a cheeky little hole waiting to hand out a spanking if messed things up.

Packing up at the van in warm spring sun shine with broad smiles, having done a beautiful river, we had not expected to do and had been picked at random was really good. Guidebooks can be inspiring, and kinda let you know what you’re going to get, but doing stuff like this just seems to make me smile more! Time for some more exploring…… still we did have some 'access' issues with the locals ;-)!

And from ned, the River Traligill…..

no piccys sorry, but i was staying up north of Ullapool a while back and I noticed this on the map. I was the only one with a boat so did some soloing of the classics like the Inver and Kirkaig, but was tempted into a bit of exploring. A walk up showed that it had potential at least in the lower section so I put plastic to shoulder and went into the hills.

The lower section was fairly unexciting run at grade 3 with one mini gorge which was maybe worth a 4. the track gave a clear site that further upstream was a steep gorge where a tributary joined the main stream. above was a bit bony so I hopped on there. I expected to walk back down thew gorge section, especially as I was alone, but to my surprise all of the gorge section was a go. An easy boof off a 2m lip before it narrowed and accelerated down a series of slabs. The final slab was steep and had a rock sticking in one side but it looked good. 2 or three more falls of up to 3 metres, but all fairly uncomplicated, led me out and away down the lower section.

Two days later there was more water so I was keen to go back up, hopeful that the run would be really good quality and that the upper section may be on. The upper section has some big falls and bizarre rock formations. the whole river resurfaces from a cave sysaetm and I put on there, it all went apart from one bigger fall which I skipped. It may have gone under different circumstances but it was not sensible to really even look. I picked down some class 4 water before joing up with the now familiar gorge section. In high water it was just a blast, 5 falls back to back all, which run come quickly. A good value walk in burn entertaing but not too pushy.

There is plenty more up there to explore....