Wild water: packrafting with the kids down Scotland’s River Tay

An 87-mile family paddling and camping adventure connects our writer with the Highlands landscape – especially when she takes an unexpected dip

Between the whirlpools of Campsie Linn on the River Tay in Perthshire and the village of Stanley, I raft down waterfalls of white into lakes laden with light. Then the river flows through twisting green corridors, wide beside walls of beech and birch trees before I have to begin paddling quickly. My heart beating fast, I head into the jaws of racing rapids, waves rearing towards me, swirling me high on to their peaks.

I’m packrafting the 117-mile-long Tay, Scotland’s longest and most powerful river, from source to sea, and this kind of excitement is par for the course. The river, which holds more water than the Thames and Severn combined, commences its journey in the west near Loch Lomond, before gliding east across the Highlands to Dundee, where it spills into the North Sea. However, we will end our journey in Perth, 87 miles from the start, because that’s where the river turns tidal.