Page 98 - Wish Stream 2023 CREST

Exercise GLEN GANDER
OCdt Gammie
Ex GLEN GANDER was an expedition allowing OCdts to gain experience and qualifications in canoeing. The exercise consisted of canoeing
the Great Glen Canoe Trail, a collection of lochs, rivers, and canals from Fort William to Inverness, all together totalling 95 kilometres.
The expedition proved to be more challenging than was initially anticipated, with many hours spent pushing through back spasm, shoulder pain and soggy sandwiches made by the excellent cook, the expedition leader. While the food was question- able, the accommodation was anything but. Wild camping the first and last nights was something to remember, watching the sun going down over the lochs while sharing a bottle of whisky and spinning dits about our arduous operational
deployments; Slims Stand and Allenbrooks Advance.
As our skills grew, so did our enthusiasm for the trip. Halfway through the fourth day on the canoe, we learnt how to create a canoe sail using a pon-
Canoeing on the canals allowed
us to effectively grasp the basics
of canoeing and rescue in a water
environment, with most of us mas-
tering the well-known J stroke and
even some of us mastering the
more elusive goon stoke. Loch
Ness was a different beast; with wind and waves against us, the group cursed the expedition leader throughout the four hours it took us to paddle six kilometres up the shoreline to our hostel. Totalling thirty kilometres, our hardest day was rewarded with a well earnt Lidl’s finest chicken curry.
iar with, pushing us out of our comfort zone, gain experience in planning and decision-making and leadership.
We learnt how to create a canoe sail using a poncho, travelling at an exuberant speed of one kilometre per hour
cho, travelling at an exuberant speed of one kilometre per hour. However, at the end of our trip, we decided to paddle even further than organised, to the disbelief of our canoe hire agency, who said “a lot of military groups do not make it.”
While the trip was thoroughly enjoyed, it also allowed us to be pushed in an activity that many of us were unfamil-
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