Dniester rafting on catamarans (4 days)

Meet in Ternopil at the railway station. Transfer to the river: on the way we stop in Buchach at the ruins of the Potocki castle (14th-17th centuries) on a rocky spur above the Strypa. Put-in is the village of Luka. On the bank we assemble the catamarans, load the gear and go through a safety briefing.

From the water you see the watchtower of 17th-century Rakovets Castle (a national monument). Of the quadrangle, the eastern tower and a scrap of wall survive; there used to be a Dniester crossing here.

Night at the foot of Chervona Hora above Beremiany. Devonian sandstones stained with iron oxides really are red; the slope rises about 150 m above the river. The microclimate is among the warmest in the Ternopil region: snow on the summit rarely lasts more than a day or two. Locals call it the Dniester subtropics.

We continue on the left bank. The Khmeleva Wall is a steep slope of Dniester Canyon National Park with Devonian outcrops and meadow steppe. A ravine of the Khmeleva stream drops a cascade of waterfalls 6-8 m high.

By Shutromyntsi are the Dorohychivski cliffs. Between Shutromyntsi and Lytiachi, if time and water level allow, we land at the Pechery waterfall. The river here runs under a wall, not through a wide valley. Camp on the bank: tomorrow is a rest day.

Rest day: we leave the catamarans in camp and walk into the Chervone tract between Nyrkiv and Ustechko. The Dzhuryn (Chervonohorod) waterfall on the Dzhuryn river is Ukraine's highest lowland waterfall: three cascades, about 16 m high and up to 20 m wide. It is probably artificial (the old bed was cut for a mill); the popular story about Ottoman troops in 1672 is not borne out by the sources.

A ten-minute walk away are the ruins of 17th-century Chervonohorod Castle and the walls of an 18th-century church. A swim in the lower cascade is optional, weather allowing; the stones are slippery. In the evening we return to the tents on the Dniester.

Last day on the water. We paddle to Zalishchyky: the town sits on the left bank in a meander bowl that the Dniester almost rings, with slopes around it rising to 300 m. It was once a climatic resort and a wine centre of interwar Poland.

In town there is a park of the former Brunicki estate (with a large ginkgo among the trees) and the 19th-century church of St Stanislaus. After we pack the catamarans, a transfer takes us to Ternopil.