A SCHOOL classroom assistant is embracing the great outdoors and attempting to set a record by paddling on more than 280 lochs.

Claire Young, accompanied by pet dog Marty, is packing up her paddleboard and travelling the length and breadth of Scotland.

East Lothian Courier: The adventure will take Claire and Marty the length and breadth of Scotland

The classroom assistant at Haddington Primary School is ‘loch-bagging’ – inspired from Munro-bagging, where people attempt to scale all of Scotland’s 282 Munros.

Instead, Claire is tackling Scotland’s largest lochs, a challenge which she thinks will take her three years to complete.

She said: “I’ve got the 282 listed now, which is quite an achievement.

“Some of them are really hard to get to and I will have to use a packraft on them.

“Some I will have to walk to and camp out, and a lot of them are on islands.

“I will have to make my way round Scotland – Shetland, Orkney, Mull, Skye, Lewis and Harris.”

The quest started at the beginning of the year with Loch Lomond the first to be ticked off.

Since then, the number Claire has bagged has risen above 30.

She said: “I did Loch Lomond in January.

“It was beautiful and there was a lovely rainbow coming off of the loch.

“It was cold but it was gorgeous.”

Claire, who lives in Haddington, started to do some research into the possibility of paddleboarding in each of Scotland’s lochs.

But after discovering that there were more than 30,000 lochs, she limited the number to match up with the number of Munros across the country.

She said: “I spoke to someone I know who is a proper adventurer.

“He said ‘nobody is doing it so make it up and make it your own thing’.

“I asked around a group of people that I was chatting to online and came up with the plan that you have to paddle for a mile minimum, whether that is across or back.

“You have to be on the loch for a substantial amount of time to bag a loch.”

The idea will take the mum-of-two across the country. from Shetland and Orkney in the north to Stranraer in the south.

East Lothian Courier: Claire Young and pet dog Marty are undertaking an impressive challenge visiting some of Scotland's most famous lochs

Claire told the Courier how she took up the challenge in a bid to de-stress and improve her mental health.

Claire, who turns 50 next month, described herself as “quite an outdoor person” and was pleased to say getting out onto the lochs alongside cocker spaniel Marty had helped.

She said: “It is just getting out and into nature.

“It is getting away from all the technology, all the worries about the war in Ukraine, all the worries about your friends getting Covid, the kids getting Covid and all those worries.

“You have to be in the moment and concentrate to be safe when you are paddling.

“It has really, really helped me.”