In a foolhardy act that I'm beginning to regret, I will be traversing the whole course of the River Spey in a day.

I'll run 15km from Loch Spey to Garva Bridge, cycle 135km
to Fochabers, swap bike for kayak and paddle the last stretch to Spey Bay. It’s one way for a newcomer to get to know the area….

The focus of Christian Aid Week 2021 is around how Climate Change
affects access to clean water across the world.

Here is Scotland we are privileged that access to water is
something we can take for granted. In this beautiful corner we also have the Spey which, aside from its beauty and ability to provide so much enjoyment through leisure, also provides much prosperity to our area through from Distilleries. It would be difficult to prove conclusively, but it seems reasonable to imagine that the Spey provides water that is exported probably more widely than any other single source of water in the world. There are not many places in the world where you’re very far away from at least one bottle of
Speyside malt!

I now live in a community in the heart of the world capital of whisky, or if you prefer usquebae – ‘water of life’. I'm hoping that my efforts might go a wee way to this community ensuring communities around the world have the water they need for life as well as exporting our ‘water of life’.