River Spey

The River Spey winds through the Scottish Highlands for 172 kilometres, making it the third longest and fastest-flowing river in Scotland. It rises above 300 metres at Loch Spey in Corrieyairack Forest, south of Fort Augustus, and descends through Newtonmore, Kingussie and Aviemore before reaching the Moray Firth west of Buckie. The river’s steep gradient and wide catchment cause rapid rises in water level after rain or snowmelt. Insh Marshes, a two-square-kilometre wetland on either side of the middle reaches, is protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The Spey has shaped local industries for centuries. Timber from forests around Aviemore and Aberlour was once rafted downstream to Garmouth, where wooden ships were built. Today the river is famed among anglers for its salmon and trout, and for the Spey cast, a fly-fishing technique developed here. The surrounding Speyside distilleries produce more malt whisky than any other region in Scotland, helped by nearby barley farms, the river’s water and access to Garmouth’s port. The Speyside Way, a long-distance footpath, follows the river from Newtonmore to the sea. Visitors find a landscape of shifting channels and shingle bars where the Spey frequently realigns its banks. South of Fochabers a high earth bank tries to hold the river, but breaches have cut through golf courses, estate walls and parts of the footpath. At Spey Bay the Moray Firth Wildlife Centre overlooks the river mouth, where seals and seabirds gather. The Spey Viaduct, now a pedestrian bridge, once carried a railway across the shifting waters; its span now ends on dry ground after the river changed course.