Canoeing in Germany

 

The weather in the last few weeks has been amazing and since we had a long weekend ahead of us (21 July is the Belgian national holiday) I suggested to go canoeing. I actually had a particularly scarring canoeing trip on the Lesse in southern Belgium a few years ago: think HUNDREDS of people on the river, mostly drunk guys on stag-dos, to the point that there was actually a traffic jam of boats blocking the river, sprinkled generously with floating rubbish in between. So I wanted to make sure that this would not be repeated. My ideal canoeing trip is somewhere calm and peaceful where you can enjoy nature and in general not be disturbed by rude, noisy people but unfortunately in Belgium there is only one river which is navigable by canoe (it IS a small country).

Then I remembered that back in my school days in Germany we did a day trip on the Ruhr, very close to where I'm from. When I googled different possibilities and itineraries it actually turned out that one of the suggested trips goes right past my grandmothers' house! Perfect, the trip was booked. If you know the Ruhr-area in Germany, it is very densely populated and certainly not the nature paradise I had hoped for. We DID pass the motorway several times but in spite of this it turned out to be much better than expected - and certainly better than on the Lesse.

To get the most out of the trip and create a real holiday-feeling we decided to go for two days and stop over night at a campsite. Also, we wanted to make use of our tent that we bought last year for the trip to Iceland and which we hadn't used since then. It was the perfect trip! The first day we paddled for about three hours and since it was quite hot that was just about right. In the evening we stopped at a very typical German campsite which was well located and had all the necessary perks: beergarden café, super modern showers (better than in most hostels), nice staff, and you could even order breakfast to go.

It was so nice to be out and about, walk around barefoot and enjoy the sun! I even took a quick dip in the river but there was a lot of algae so I didn't dare to swim properly. The only tough bit with the canoe was when we had to carry it around the weirs because it was super heavy with all our camping gear inside. All in all there were three of them and we were quite exhausted but it also made for a change from the monotonous paddling.

After the trip we took the train back to the starting point where we had left the car and went to have lunch at my grandmothers' place. Bliss!