Always summer Pt. deux - featuring the milky way and the northern lights

It's no secret i'm a big fan of the summer isles.

I'm lucky enough to work there quite often and i have run several trips to these incredible islands in the north west of the highlands this year.

I've just returned from guiding two back to back expeds with Wilderness Scotland, adventuring in among the skerries, caves and cliffs that make this area so special.

With very little light pollution that far north and having recently bought a wide aperture fish-eye lens, i thought i'd get up in the early hours to have a stab at some Astro-photography.
A test shot from the comfort of my tent made me realise i had a chance to shoot something else i'd been wanting to witness since moving to Scotland...

 The Northern lights are quite often visible in the highlands, but i've never been able to catch them due to various reasons, normally a lot of cloud cover, so I was very excited to get these shots.
Hopping out my tent i wandered around the beach on which we were camped snapping away, playing with various settings, often not sure whether to capture the amazing milky way, or the aurora!

As this was my first ever attempt at astro-photography, i'm content with the results, but i learnt a lot and have a few things to try next time.
Another clear night two nights later gave me the chance to get up again and try and get a few more shots of the stars. This time i decided to play with lighting up the Tipi, which worked quite well i think!

Low water high fun!

It's been a couple months since i last blogged, but there's a few to come in one go so hopefully that compensates!

I've been really busy working this summer, especially in the second half, with many back to back blocks of work not allowing for much personal play time. However, i'd blocked off a bit of time where my sister Emily came to visit and we went to the Gentlemen of the Road festival in Aviemore; followed by a few touristy type days after, including a spot of scambling, a day feeding the red deer at Rothiemurcus and a day sea kayaking in Glenuig.

Me and my wee sis

Nom Nom Nom

Lizzy and Tristan have now taken over the running of the sea kayak side of the business there. A stunning place and some world class sea kayaking on the door step, not to mention top class guiding and coaching from those guys!
Sea kayak Arisaig  are also responsible for the Scottish distribution of the excellent Tiderace sea kayaks and have a full fleet of demo boats available to try out in one of Scotland's best sea kayak venues, i'd highly recommend dropping them a line if you are near.

The following few days i had free and needed a break from Aviemore (believe it or not it can get quite claustrophobic!) so went to stay at my friend George's beautiful cottage near Loch Ness and had a few days whitewater kayaking with the crew.

Our first day we headed over to Perthshire to the Blackwater, which features in one of my previous posts. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so don't have any pictures!
Levels were high, and I put in some sketchy lines, still suffering from my cold i'd picked up post festival. Fiona, on the other hand was on fire in her new Zet Raptor nailing all the lines on the hard rapids really smoothly.
Both me and Fiona have been lucky enough to get hooked up with Raptors from Zet UK recently and I cannot rate the boat highly enough! Super fast and handles beautifully, more to come on that in the future.

The rainfall that brought great levels on the Blackwater rapidly ran off leaving us without many options for the following few days, but heading west we managed to get some good craic on a low level Spean gorge in the sunshine before heading further west over the weekend to meet up with a few other team members.

Despite the low level, spirits were high and a much fun was had on a low Etive and Allt a Chaorrain with me Jonny, Matt, Bastien, George and Chris heading to the Clachaig for a car camp, pub grub and several ales.
With sore heads the next day, we had a blast on the Orchy before driving back to Aviemore.

Fiona had been working the weekend, but was desperate to get out kayaking on Monday and with Jonny still in Fort William and her offering to pick me and Bastien up en-route, we drove back to the Etive for more air time.

Fi loving the Raptor!

There's always something that goes in Scotland, and whilst i much prefer the rivers when there's a bit of chunk in them, it's always worth the effort to go kayaking!