AUTUMN NEWSLETTER - Nov 2013

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1 AUTUMN NEWSLETTER - Nov 2013 Welcome to Explore Highland s Autumn 2013 Newsletter has again been a very, very busy second season for us and we are just starting to play catch up now. Although we never really stop paddling, from November to February, we are usually a little quieter, allowing us to recover from summer, take on board all our customer feedback and make plans for the following season already looks very exciting as we have even more adventures planned in all crafts, in all corners of the scenic Highlands. Keep exploring, Donald Canoe Trails, Wilderness & White Water 2014 is the year of homecoming in Scotland. Our aim is to get everyone canoe active in our great outdoors, explore new places and the time you spend in the Scottish wilderness truly rewarding. Canoeing Activities for 2014 Introduction to Open Canoeing (1 day) Improvers Open Canoeing (1 day) River Moriston Canoe Adventure (2 days) Loch Ness Canoe Adventure (2 days) Loch Maree/ River Ewe Adventure (2 days) Great Glen Canoe Trail (4-5 days) River Spey Canoe Expedition (2-4 days) River Tay Canoe Expedition (2-4 days) Highland Canoe Classis (5 days) and more In 2013 we guided the Great Glen Canoe Trail seven times and the River Spey four looks even busier and looking to offer both guided Great Glen and River Spey adventures monthly during the season. Guided touring kayak adventures will also be offered to those who prefer two blades! For canoeists who are looking for a more purist challenge, we will be adding a few lesser known Scottish Canoe Trails to our diary. These will help you master many traditional canoeist journeying skills and a whole new meaning to the words Explore Highland! Not forgetting the white water canoeists, we will be offering our now famous five day Highland Canoe Classics course in both Spring and Autumn. Paddle a minimum of five Highland classic canoe rivers over five days, based out of Inverness. The Scottish Highlands are every canoeists dream holiday! Facebook Explore Highland have now passed the 1,600 likes. Help us reach our 2,014 likes target by sharing with your friends, family and work colleagues!

2 White Water Kayaking Over the last two years, Explore Highland has focused on becoming one of Scotland s best paddlesports providers. We may be a small local company, but that s what our clients love about us. We can create bespoke adventures, activities and courses on request whilst providing friendly local and highly experienced instructors, making your activities safe, fun and progressive no matter your skill level. Yes it s true, we haven t pushed our white water kayaking side much, until now! However, we are equally skilled and capable in offering fantastic Scottish kayaking adventure holidays too. Fusion Crossover Kayaks New for 2014, Explore Highland will be receiving a fleet of Pyranha Fusion crossover kayaks. These crafts will be help us offer a number of new multi-day paddling adventures. Ideal for use on flat water, sheltered water and white water environments, they have enough storage space for multi-day adventures. Some adventures we will be offering using Fusions; Loch Ness Adventures River Spey Expeditions and more Great Glen Expeditions River Findhorn Expeditions What s more is that these great boats will be available to hire for single and multi-day self guided adventures when not booked out for our trips. Your kayaking adventures within the Scottish Highlands are now endless with these great boats being added to our white water kayak fleet. Highland White Water Classics - Int/Adv Kayak Scotland is undoubtedly thee best place to white water kayak in the UK. During Spring and Autumn the water is guaranteed, offering a great choice of graded white water rivers to challenge any kayaker. We guide a number of five day Intermediate and Advanced group holidays based centrally from Inverness. Each morning the group can decide on the best local white water rivers to paddle that day. We supply local guiding/coaching, transport from Inverness and all equipment (if required). Paddlers can choose their own local accommodation which we can help source, with top highland hospitality. Intermediate: 3-7 Feb 14 Advanced: Feb 14 White Water Safety & Rescue Course Our next WWSR course will be running over weekend 12/13 April which has six places. We are lucky to have Bruce Jolliffe as the tutor for this course. Those that don t know Bruce, he was part of the team that produced the White Water Safety DVD, which you ll receive as part of the course (unless you already own it)! Course cost is 150 including DVD or 140 without DVD For more info see:

3 Scottish Sea Kayaking Over the season our two P&H Cetus kayaks Salti & Knoydart have visited a lot of Scotland s coastline and covered many hundred nautical miles. Knoydart, pictured above, joined the coaches fleet in March and was apply named as it ended up visiting the Knoydart area no less than four times within it s first three months with us including during the Scottish Sea Kayak Symposium back in May. Over 2013 we also helped supporting many self-guided groups to explore the Scottish coastline. Our plans are to run a lot more sea kayaking activities too in 2014, as our sea kayak instructor team increases. Here s some of our sea kayaking activities we have lined up for next year. Please remember we do offer bespoke sea kayaking adventures and are happy to discuss and offer a group quote! Sea Kayaking Courses Introduction to Sea Kayaking Intermediate Sea Kayaking Workshops Improver Sea Kayaking Workshops Advanced Sea Kayaking Workshops BCU 3 Star Sea Kayak Training/Assess. and more Sea Kayaking Adventures Explore the Outer Hebrides Explore the Sound of Harris Explore the Summer Isles Explore the Inner Sound/Skye Explore Knoydart Explore the Small Isles Explore Scotland s East Coast Explore Scotland s West Coast Explore the Great Glen and more Our P&H Scorpio kayak fleet is available to hire to experienced paddlers. Please us for a quote! Taking on the Great Glen Canoe Trail in 2014? Why not get your signed GGCT Guidebook direct from Donald and start planning your adventure. For only 13 incl. p&p receive a signed guidebook plus a 10% discount voucher for any of our 2014 GGCT services including shuttle service, equipment hire or our guided adventure holidays. Sea Kayaking with Gordon Brown DVD 3 Maybe a stocking fill for that sea kayaker in your life? (Available with next 20 copies sold. Offer open until Friday 20th December 2014) Order by today while stocks last: info@explorehighland.com Gordon Brown s third DVD was released late October and I hear they are selling like hot cakes. Donald was invited out to Stornoway in Feb and again to Skye in March to be part of the paddling team supporting this production. Full of useful tips, skills and techniques, the four chapters of this dvd cover Handling Emergency Situations, Sea Kayak Navigation, a Rolling Clinic and First Aid Kits. Fancy a preview: DVD s can be purchased direct from Simon Willis or Gordon Brown simon@sunartmedia.com info@skyakadventures.com

4 End of Season Boat/Kit Sale It s that time of year again when we offer our boats and some kit up for sale. To keep our hire fleet sparkling and current, we sell off a third of both our P&H Sea Kayaks and Venture Canoe fleet every year. We are also in the midst of changing over our river fleet to the latest models of Pyranha Kayaks so we have a number of river kayak bargains available too. Visit to see our current kit up for grabs. Boat Hire in the Scottish Highlands Not all adventures should be undertaken as a guided trip. Sometimes its nice to get away from it all and relax in the company of a few chosen friends. Explore Highland offers excellent hire equipment to paddlers with suitable experience. Experience will depend on your chosen adventure. Minimum experience required for sheltered water use would be similar to that of the BCU 2 Star syllabus. We are able to offer safety/skills training too for those requiring it. Even better news is we are increasing our hire fleet and have kept our hire costs at 2013 prices. Please feel free to get in touch to discuss hire and shuttle options. (Advanced booking required) 2014 Hire Prices Venture Canoes Wenonah Canoes Wavesport/ Pyranha Kayaks Sea/Touring Kayaks Necky Tandem Half day hire* 30* N/A 20* 25* 30* Single day hire** 45* N/A 35* 40* 45* Two day hire Three day hire Four day hire Five day hire More than Five days Contact Us Contact Us Contact Us Contact Us Contact Us *Half day hire (4 hours) or Single day hire (8 hours) are available on the Caledonian Canal/Beauly Firth, River Ness by prior arrangement only Decks, paddles, BA s and helmets included with hire. Other equipment also available. Larger groups catered for with advanced notice! Mailing List Prize Draw We all love a prize draw and over the last few months we have given away a variety of guidebooks and goodies. To enter, simply make sure you are signed up to our mailing list on our website homepage. Draws take place on the last day of each month! November Prices 2x sets of PEAK UK Roof bar pads December Prizes 2x EH Baseball Caps We value our clients and aim to provide great customer care. Please help us fine tune our service by taking our short customer care survey. It will take less than five minutes, so go make yourself a cuppa and give us some feedback!

5 Your Next Highland Adventure New for 2014, we are working with our returning clients to plan their next paddling adventure holiday. A number of clients have asked us to run specific guided adventure holidays for We aim to have these dates set by mid January. So, if you have a specific adventure in mind, there is still time to get in touch and add it to our events diary - We re also happy to offer bespoke group adventures too. So get your diary out, choose your adventure and us at info@explorehighland.com 2014 Course Calendar February 1 Introduction to Sea Kayaking 6 places 70pp 2 Improver Sea Kayaking Workshop 6 places 70pp 8 Introduction to River Kayaking 6 places 70pp 8/9 BCU 3 Star Sea Kayak Training/Assessment 6 places 120pp 9 Improver White Water Kayaking Workshop 6 places 70pp 15/16 BCU 3 Star Open Canoe Training/Assessment 6 places 70pp 22 Introduction to Open Canoeing 8 places 70pp 23 Introduction to River Canoeing 6 places 70pp March 8/9 BCU 2 Star Canoe & Kayak Training/Assessment 6 places 120pp 15 Introduction to Open Canoeing 8 places 70pp 16 Introduction to Sea Kayaking 6 places 70pp April 12/13 White Water Safety & Rescue Training 6 places 140pp* February 3 Highland White Water Classics - Intermediate Kayak (5 days) 6 places 325pp** 10 Highland White Water Classics - Intermediate Canoe (5 days) 6 places 325pp** 17 Highland White Water Classics - Advanced Kayak (5 days) 6 places 325pp** April 14 Great Glen Canoe Trail - by Open Canoe (5 days) 8 places 475pp** May 30 River Spey Canoe Expedition - by Open Canoe (4 days) 6 places 380pp** June July Aug Sept Oct 2014 Adventure Calendar * Price for WWSR course not including DVD. 150 including DVD. **Early bird booking discount available on all courses booked two months in advance whilst available!