Day 5 – The final day, we was woken by an eager Ben preparing the morning coffee and getting ready to hit the water. We could all feel how close the finish line was and were happy to pack away, get on the canal and start paddling.
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It was an extremely cold but clear morning and once out of the tent we were greeted by frozen gloves and icy boards. The last section of canal was a breeze and as we entered Inverness we knew we didn’t have far to push. As we neared the end of a long bend suddenly it came into sight, the kessock bridge. Only two things now stood in our way, a 750m portage into the canal harbour and then the transfer back into the sea from the canal. The latter of the two proved to be a nightmare, scrambling across train tracks, along headlands and down rocky sidings with all of our gear into the moray firth and straight into a shallow bay filled with thick tidal mud that began to pull you down as soon as you stepped into it.
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We battled through, cleared the shallow section and got ourselves back out into the deeper waters in the centre of the firth and as we neared the bridge, the seals popped up to check us out, curious about our boards.
We paddled under the finish line at around midday and landed at the lifeboat station to enjoy the views and allow what we had just done to sink in. A successful coast to coast crossing of Scotland on SUP boards complete and doing so we had raised funds to help young people across the UK at a difficult time of year. A job well done, it was time to pack up and head home for Christmas.
–
It was an extremely cold but clear morning and once out of the tent we were greeted by frozen gloves and icy boards. The last section of canal was a breeze and as we entered Inverness we knew we didn’t have far to push. As we neared the end of a long bend suddenly it came into sight, the kessock bridge. Only two things now stood in our way, a 750m portage into the canal harbour and then the transfer back into the sea from the canal. The latter of the two proved to be a nightmare, scrambling across train tracks, along headlands and down rocky sidings with all of our gear into the moray firth and straight into a shallow bay filled with thick tidal mud that began to pull you down as soon as you stepped into it.
–
We battled through, cleared the shallow section and got ourselves back out into the deeper waters in the centre of the firth and as we neared the bridge, the seals popped up to check us out, curious about our boards.
We paddled under the finish line at around midday and landed at the lifeboat station to enjoy the views and allow what we had just done to sink in. A successful coast to coast crossing of Scotland on SUP boards complete and doing so we had raised funds to help young people across the UK at a difficult time of year. A job well done, it was time to pack up and head home for Christmas.
