Hurtling down the River Tummel, I bounce off rocks, spin through eddies and plunge over waterfalls into pools of icy water.
Sounds like great fun? It certainly is!
I’m spending an afternoon river bugging with Aberfeldy-based Splash Rafting.
I hadn’t heard of the phenomenon until recently but apparently it’s been in Scotland – thought to be the only place in the UK where you can do it – since 2003.
So what exactly is river bugging?
Meeting up with guides Donas Jegat and Jacopa Bagat in a car park near Clunie Power Station a few miles from Pitlochry, I’m about to find out.
There are three other people in the group and once we’ve been kitted out with wetsuits, webbed gloves (to protect our hands and help us paddle through currents), bouyancy aids and helmets, the guys give us an induction.
The instructions are simple – sit in the middle of the bug, which is a bit like an inflatable armchair, keep your legs up to avoid crunching them against rocks, and listen to any advice. Do your best to keep hold of your bug but if it floats off without you, allow yourself to drift with your head facing down river.
“Will we fall in?” asks a glamorous girl in the group.
“You might do!” winks Donas.
We start off walking into the river in trainers and then, with Donas’s help, launch ourselves over a mini rapid.
Unsurprisingly, one of my fellow floaters hasn’t listened to where she should sit, and falls in headfirst almost immediately.
I follow on behind her, and stay upright, but get a good soaking.
As our session progresses, we face faster moving rapids and steeper waterfalls – not great for the hair or makeup, as my friend discovers.
The finale comes as we hurl ourselves down the biggest waterfall along the route, and we do this two ways – facing forwards and then facing backwards.
I plop out of the bug each time, gasping for breath as I surface at the bottom. Very refreshing indeed.
The bugs may look like balloons that will pop with a gentle prick, but they are surprisingly robust.
Dragging them back to dry land, Donas has one more surprise. “You want to go behind the waterfall?” he asks.
Casting my mind back to Enid Blyton’s novel, The Valley of Adventure, where the characters discover a secret cave hidden behind a waterfall with a curtain of greenery covering the entrance, it doesn’t take much to convince me (I absolutely loved that book).
I watch as Jacopa disappears behind the wall of water and wait for him to pop out on the other side. It looks easy enough.
However, as I walk through the spray and stand on the ledge at the back of the waterfall, I’m consumed by an overwhelming sense of panic.
The water is raining down on my head and I shout out to Jacopa that I can’t breathe…which is rubbish, of course.
“Put your head down!” he laughs, as I beg to get out, and when I’m ready, I turn around and allow him to push me into the plunge pool. What a relief!
Session over, the buzz is immense and I’m desperate to come back for more.
Apparently there’s a lot more water here at weekends. That’s because every Saturday throughout summer, water is released from Clunie Dam, which provides fantastic conditions for upping the bugging ante.
Splash Rafting runs bugging trips year round, so daredevils can have chilly fun right through winter although my advice would be to do it now, while the water is relatively warm.
Ultimately, river bugging is an exciting and unusual way of travelling down some of Scotland’s finest rivers. Just one word of advice – listen to the experts and prepare for a soaking.
info
Splash Rafting has a fleet of 22 river bugs. They bug the River Tay, River Tummel and the River Feshie. To book, see rafting.co.uk
