Some Rascals go Canoeing on Loch Nevis – April 2025
It started, as perhaps all the best adventures should, with some campsite washroom dentistry at Glen Nevis campsite. Some of you know Bernie. He is a dentist (also known as “Super Tangles Boy”, down to his excellent skills at rope handling previously perfectly coiled ropes and lines). He has two brothers, Mikey and Simes and they all like canoeing, as well as sailing!
Dentistry completed (ask Mick!), we 5 merry crew headed for Mallaig where we launched the canoes into the harbour down some slippery rock armour(free parking along the road beside the harbour for 7 days) – two open Canadians and Bernie’s Solway Dory sailing canoe. Once fully laden with dry bags and boxes containing camping equipment, warm clothes, walking kit, a golfing umbrella, axes, saws, food and drink for 4 days, we paddled east out of the harbour with the flood tide, bound for Inverie at the top of Loch Nevis, the
location of the most remote pub in the British Isles. (We are only talking “remote” if you want to get there by land. It is on Knoydart and there is no road there from the main road
network – you have to walk, and it is 17 miles. Or you can catch a foot ferry from Mallaig, 7 miles away – or you can travel there in your own boat. There are moorings for sailing boats too.)

View from the window of The Old Forge
The Old Forge Inn is now a community-run pub, serving food and a great selection of ales. Plenty of customers and a kind of “stick it to the man” atmosphere, the community having bought it back from the rich Belgian landowner who only used to open it during the summer and even then, intermittently. Now the community run the pub (successfully and at a profit) a post office, a café, a small forestry and a campsite along the beach, about a mile away from the pub with a bothy and a composting toilet which has a great view!

Inverie Beach Bothy and camp site
The campsite is next to Inverie House which was owned in the 1930s by Lord Brocket, a Nazi sympathiser who was interned during the war years and his properties, including Inverie House, were sequestrated by the War Office and used as training camps for commandos and SOE agents. After the war his property at Inverie was returned to him. Being proper posh and a bit of an a**e he ordered that any of his belongings which might have been used or touched by the dirty SOE agents be removed from the house. So, all the cutlery and crockery as well as all the toilets (!) were taken out and dumped in the sea at the mouth of Loch Nevis. An expedition for Scarborough Sub Aqua Club perhaps?!

From where we came
We paddled along the coast on the south side of the loch past little pebbly beaches and rocky outcrops, spotting seals, porpoises and stopping for a picnic on the way. “Plastic Mary” (a huge GRP statue of the Virgin located on Rubha Raonuill on the north side the loch) could be seen in the distance. The weather was clement, considering the time of year and there was enough wind for Bernie to sail but not too much to make paddling a fully laden Canadian Canoe a dicey experience.

Heading for Inverie
There was quite a bit of wind coming from the south as we crossed the head of Loch Nevis, causing white caps which concentrated the mind and resulted in stronger, deeper paddle strokes and greater speed (it is amazing how far you can see but how slowly to you seem to reach your destination in a canoe!)

View from beach at Inverie
The beach at Inverie is wide and deep and the waters are shallow a long way out. Kelp dances in the crystal-clear waters on a sandy bottom. It is mesmerising to paddle through.
After a great pub session and a meal of Polish sausage and cabbage stew (tastes nicer than it sounds!) made on the camp stove at the bothy we made a huge fire on the beach (with firewood provided by the community) and lay looking out to sea and up at the stars. There were a few other tents – mostly walkers but it was pretty quiet.

Sausage Stew!

Inverie Camp Fire
On Day 2, after paying our campsite fees into the honesty box in the morning, we set off south along the shores Loch Nevis past banks of primroses and, on the other side of the loch, one of the oldest fish farms in the country, towards the narrows at Kyles knoydart. We wanted to be at the narrows at low water so that we could go foraging for shellfish. We set up a small camp on a beach and made lunch, waiting for low water. Then I found a handy disused bucket on the beach and went on my search. I collected mussels, clams and winkles for dinner. Well stocked, and with bucket stowed, we paddled our way further up Loch Nevis towards Sourlies Bothy which lies at the head of the Loch in the shadow of Sgurr na Ciche – an iconic, pointy Munro, nicknamed “The Nipple”. Otters were seen playing on the shoreline but they disappeared into the water when they clocked us.

Loch Nevis with view of Sgurr na Ciche

Bernie’s Solway Dory sailing canoe
Along the way we beached our canoes to collect firewood then completed our journey fully stacked with branches and sticks, arriving around 3 in the afternoon, in beautiful weather. There were a few people in the bothy – which probably sleeps about 8 people comfortably – there is a stream behind the bothy where you can collect water and there is a log burning stove inside – but you need to bring your own wood! We pitched our tents at the end of the beach on the grass instead of sleeping in the bothy and made a base camp using the canoes as walls and deploying a tarp for shelter. We made a big fire and cooked seafood linguine in the sunset. Pretty amazing spot.

Seafood Linguine

Looking west down Loch Nevis
We woke to beautiful sunny weather on Day 3 and decided to stay put and to climb the 1040 metre Munro above us. It was a steep climb and there was no footpath to speak of but the views were incredible until the cloud came down and shrouded the peak!

Bernie and Simes on the lower slopes of Sgurr na Ciche

And a bit higher!
Only Mick and Simes braved the walk/scramble right to the top.

When the cloud was just getting settled on top
Me, Bernie and Mikey decided to drop back down to our camp to chat, eat fruit cake and drink beer in the afternoon sun and watch the large herd of deer out on the beach of the estuary.
Dinner of corned beef hash and baked beans washed down with beer, when Mick and Simes returned followed by another beautiful evening, with a fire. Oh – and no reception or internet here! Glorious isolation! There could have been an apocalypse and we would have been none the wiser!
We had a debate on the morning of Day 4. Options were to paddle to Tarbet near Kylesknoydart and then to portage 1 km or so across to Loch Morar (the deepest fresh-water lock in the British Isles – 310 metres deep in the middle!) or to head back to Inverie and enjoy another night in the pub. I was all for the latter. We had a lot of heavy stuff and it would have taken us all afternoon to carry 3 boats and all our equipment over to Loch Morar, and we had run out of beer and wine… Say no more. There was a tiny bit of dissent but the lack of beer swung it. We did go to have a look at the little hamlet at Tarbet, passing Cameron Mackintosh’s fabulous house (looks like an expensive, well – maintained folly with a proper harbour, blasted out of the rock)

Cameron Mackintosh’s House

Tarbet Bay
and then set off down-wind along the loch back to Inverie.
This is when I got to deploy my golfing umbrella as a down-wind sail! We managed to get our speed up to 7 knots, wind assisted, with Mick providing the rudder steering with his paddle. As we neared the camp we spotted a golden eagle being attacked by buzzards!

Bernie’s sailing canoe
Canoeing is such a peaceful way to travel and it is nice to be so close to the water and the coast – having no keel has its benefits! This was truly a value for life holiday – 5 days away on Loch Nevis feels like 5 weeks in the wilderness and there were no ‘mudgees’! Bonus!

Heading back to Mallaig
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