At the end of August, six of us set off from Neptune’s Staircase in Fort William in three hired canoes. The plan was to paddle the 95km (60 miles) of the Great Glen Canoe Trail to Inverness in five days, coast to coast across Scotland. A gale warning cut it to four, which meant two very long days on Loch Ness.
For my brother-in-law Adam and me, this trip had been a long time coming. Twelve years earlier, we walked the West Highland Way from Glasgow to Fort William, so paddling on from where that walk finished felt like the natural next chapter. Adam nearly didn’t make it, though. He only joined a few weeks before we left, when Will, one of the original group, had to drop out with an injury.
Here’s how canoeing the Great Glen went, day by day. If you’re planning your own trip, my Great Glen Canoe Trail guide covers registration, camping, portages and route planning, and my kit list covers everything I packed.
The Crew
Our group was a real mix. I didn’t know anyone when I joined, and neither did two or three of the others, but everyone knew someone, and it worked. I actually met Andrew at a BBQ back in April and essentially invited myself along.
Andrew and David took one canoe, Rob and Chris (better known as Chaff) took another, and Adam and I took the third. Experience varied a lot. I’ve paddled for years, mostly on a paddle board, and done canoe trips on the River Wye, but most of the group had far less. After years of adventures together, Adam and I could paddle and navigate almost non-verbally. The others took a little longer to find their rhythm, but by the end, everyone had found their groove.
The Night Before: A Last-Minute Camp
We hired our canoes and kit from Explore Highland. Donald picked us up in Inverness on the Sunday evening, drove us and the boats to Fort William, and arranged to collect everything from Inverness at the end of the week. His kit was excellent. Each canoe came with three paddles, a sail, a waterproof barrel, a portage trolley, and a baler and sponge, and the group shared a water container, a lock and a toiletry bag.
When you book, Donald runs a webinar to talk your group through the trip. Ours happened before I joined, and only two of our final six attended.
A few hours before Donald was due to pick us up, he asked where we were camping that night so he could drop us off. We’d all been told a campsite was included in the package. It wasn’t, and we had nowhere booked.
Cue a last-minute scramble. Fort William has campsites, hostels and Airbnbs, but nothing could take six people with no notice, but Andrew, being the legend he is, saved the day. He rang every guest house near the canal with a decent garden and asked if we could pitch in it. One said yes, and their garden had a path leading straight down to the canal.
Normally, Donald drops you somewhere you can lock the canoes up securely, and you walk back to them in the morning. If you book a trip like this, make sure everyone knows the plan, and book your first night before you travel.
Day 1: Neptune’s Staircase to the Three Bears
After a night in a guest house’s back garden, we launched at the top of Neptune’s Staircase in Banavie, Telford’s flight of eight locks that lifts boats 20m (64ft) in under 500m. The weather was mixed all day, overcast with sunny spells and the odd shower, but it only added to the fun.
We broke most days into two-hour stints, and the first took us along the canal to Gairlochy for coffee and snacks. The guidebook suggests camping there on the first night, but it was still late morning, so we carried the canoes around the lock and onto Loch Lochy. We tried the sails, but there wasn’t a breath of wind.
For most of the group, this was the first real open water they’d ever done. We took a diagonal line from the south-western corner towards Clunes on the north shore. Halfway across, the cloud dropped until we could barely see the mountains on the far side, and it turned wet and grey. After about two hours, we pulled onto a little beach near Clunes for snacks and tried to warm up.
From there, we followed the north shore until we spotted a carved wooden canoe on a beach with three bears sitting in it: the new Loch Lochy Trailblazer Rest. The original site at Glas Dhoire is still there, but a big construction project has pushed the camp a little further west. The new ‘Three Bears’ site sits back off a long beach, with a wooden hut in the trees, a big fire pit ringed with benches, and plenty of spots to pitch.
Morale was high that evening. At the start of the trip, we’d made a pact to take a dip a day in the lochs, and five of the six of us braved Loch Lochy. It was freezing, but it was a good laugh and a great way to wash off the day.
Afterwards, we got a fire going by the hut, and I swapped into my OEX Kintra down jacket. Andrew and David pitched on the beach, Adam set up his tent in the woods, and Chaff, Rob and I took the hut. Rain was forecast, so while they slept on their mats, I pitched my MSR Hubba Hubba Bikepack inside, laid out my Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XLite NXT and Vesper sleeping bag, and stayed dry and bug-free. It also saved me packing away a wet tent in the morning. The whole setup is light and packs down small, which a few of the others were envious of by the end of the week.
Day 2: Sails, a Swim and Fort Augustus
Day two started with awful weather, so I zipped up my Rohan Aira jacket, pulled on my Berghaus Maitland overtrousers, and hoped for the best. At least the wind was behind us. We were on the water by 8.30am, and the sails went straight up. The wind was gusty, and every gust flung us forward. Most of the group didn’t enjoy it, but Adam and I loved it and kept going long after the others had packed theirs away.
The end of Loch Lochy is where we made our first mistake. We hugged the north shore, then cut straight across to the exit, which put the waves right into the side of the canoes. Adam and I were out in front, so when we saw the others pull off the water, we landed further up and walked back to check on them. A few had taken on so much water they had to bail out.
Then came the story of the trip. Our routine was always the same: Adam sat in the back, and I pushed the front out and jumped in. This time I rushed it, landed with my weight on one side, and flung Adam straight out of the back and into the loch. He went fully under.
It was already a miserable day, and I felt terrible, but Adam laughed it off like a champ. The weather picked up once we were past the lock, and he soon dried off. It was also the only dip of day two, so our dip-a-day pact had already failed for all but Adam.
Just around the corner, we portaged back onto the canal, which opens straight onto Loch Oich, the highest point of the trail. We had a few more chances to sail here. We kept to the south shore and, rather than going round the outside of a small island, took a fun detour through a marshy channel on the inside.
Partway through the day, we got some news: a gale-force 8 warning for Friday, our planned final day. We were already ahead of schedule, but finishing by Thursday meant two long days on Loch Ness. A few of the group doubted we could do it and even talked about stopping early. For the rest of us, that wasn’t an option. We’d come all the way to Scotland, and we were going to paddle the whole thing.
Day two had four portages and around three hours on the towpath, so we skipped proper breaks and made food and hot drinks at the portages instead. Adam and I had our portages down to about 10 minutes. The others took closer to 30 to 45.
The last portage of the day was the big one at Fort Augustus: down the left-hand side of the five-lock flight, across the road, and down to Loch Ness. Our first sight of the loch stopped us in our tracks. The sun was out, the water was perfectly still, and it stretched further than we could see. Loch Ness is about 36km (22.5 miles) long and up to 2.7km (1.7 miles) wide, and it holds more water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined.
Back on the water, we turned right across the mouth of the canal and paddled on until we found a patch of woodland to camp in. Rob and Chaff, the elders of the group, had booked themselves a B&B, so there were four of us at camp. We made the most of the facilities key. The showers at the top of the locks were huge and hot, and after two days of paddling they felt incredible. Then it was fish and chips, eaten around the fire back at camp.
Day 3: Eight Hours into the Wind on Loch Ness
Rob and Chaff met us at around 8am, and we were on the water by 9. Loch Ness was a millpond, so still it looked fake. In our photos, it looks like we’ve been photoshopped onto a backdrop.
Donald had told us you can’t see the far end because of the curvature of the Earth. The loch is so long that the far end drops out of sight, and it only reveals itself bit by bit as you paddle. It was a strange and brilliant thing to watch.
Early on, a speedboat passed on the far side of the loch. By the time its wake reached us, the waves had grown surprisingly large. We were heading straight into them and were fine, but a little further on, we found three other canoes that had all been capsized by the same wake. Everyone was OK, but they’d lost gear, and it shook us all. From then on, we all felt the need to be more cautious.
Before our first proper break, we pulled in for a quick toilet stop. Climbing out next to a rocky bank, Adam stepped onto a rock he thought he could see under the water. There wasn’t one. In he went again, this time into Loch Ness. Two days, two swims. After a short paddle further on, we pulled off the water again, this time to stop for a coffee and get Adam warmed up.
A few hours in, the wind swung round to face us, and there was no chance of sailing. For most of the day, we punched through waves of around 80cm (2.5ft), and every stroke felt like it was taking us nowhere.
Just before Foyers, we spotted an egret nest in a tree, with a couple of birds circling low over the water. At Foyers, out came my MSR Switch to boil water for coffee and heat up a meal pouch. A hot lunch was exactly what we needed before our final push of the day when we we’re all already tired.
Nessie didn’t make an appearance, but later in the day, we started spotting small groups of wild goats lounging on the beaches, completely unbothered by us.
After Foyers, the last real stop on the south shore is Inverfarigaig. Beyond it, steep cliffs and banks run for a long way with nowhere to land. We’d aimed for Urquhart Castle, but it was further than any of us expected.
That final stretch was the hardest part of the trip. We were drained, our backs and shoulders ached, and the bow crashed over every wave. With nowhere to stop, all we could do was get our heads down and paddle. After almost eight hours on the water, we pulled onto the first beach we came to.
It was tiny. We squeezed four tents onto it, so I shared the Sierra Designs Meteor 3000 I’d lent Adam. Somehow, David still had the energy for a dip. The rest of us sat around a small fire on the shore, too tired to say much, looking across the loch to Urquhart Castle.
Day 4: Sailing Loch Ness and the Run into Inverness
On the last morning, the first thing any of us did was stick our heads out of the tents and check the wind. Thankfully, it was behind us, and we spent most of the morning sailing up Loch Ness, with waves of up to 1m (3ft) rolling up behind us. This time, we crossed the end of the loch diagonally.
Adam and I had packed light, so our canoe sat high and rode the waves well. The others had overpacked, and their canoes sat much lower. Near the end of the loch, a few of them panicked and got off the water short of the tip, where Adam and I had landed. Nobody wanted to go back out, so we spent a “fun” hour or more dragging the others’ canoes and gear along the shore until everyone was at the tip and ready to set off on the last leg of the journey.
From there, we passed through little Loch Dochfour and rejoined the canal for the final stretch. Day four had two portages, and the last one, at Tomnahurich, was the only time all week we took out on the right. It brought us down to the car park by the Jammy Piece café, where we’d left the cars, and we unloaded the canoes one last time while we waited for Donald.
It felt good to finish, but sad too. We’d been looking forward to this trip for six months, and it’s always odd when something you’ve built up for so long comes to an end. I’d happily have kept paddling. Adam and I joked that, having walked to Fort William and paddled to Inverness, we’ll have to come back and cycle the last leg to John o’ Groats.
If you finish here, get a bacon bun from Jammy Piece. After four days of ration packs and trail snacks, it was absolutely banging.
Looking Back on Canoeing the Great Glen
The highlight for me was the sailing, starting on Loch Lochy, which ended up as my favourite loch of the trip. Catching the wind and gliding along without paddling was brilliant fun, even when the gusts caught us out.
Some of the best moments were the simple ones, though: evenings around the fire, drying out wet kit and talking through the day, and mornings with a coffee in hand and the maps spread out to plan the day ahead.
The hardest moment was that last stretch of day three, but it was also one of the most rewarding.
Would I do it again? Definitely, and I’d like to try it on a paddle board one day. But it’ll probably be a few years before I’m back, as there are so many other waterways I want to paddle first.
If you’re thinking about canoeing the Great Glen yourself, start with my Great Glen Canoe Trail guide for planning, registration, camping and Loch Ness safety, and my kit list for what to pack.
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Steve Cleverdon
Adventure-driven outdoor gear reviewer and paddleboarder, Steve has spent 20 years exploring rivers, coastlines, and trails across Britain and abroad, sharing what he’s learned along the way. Learn more about Steve or get in touch.
