Search Result 95 From: Wilko van den Bergh (wilko@stack.nl) Subject: Paddling on the Erft (Germany), day trip "report" Newsgroups: rec.boats.paddle (This is the only article in this thread) Date: 1998/03/02 Sunday, the 1st of March Short description (1 Kilometer is roughly 0,6 mile) The Erft is a small tributary to the river Rhine. The last few kilometers it flows through the town of Neuss, close to Duesseldorf, Germany (Europe). It is canalised but it has some very nice play spots, with slow water in between the playspots and small rapids. Because of the browncoal-mines in the area, the groundwater is pumped up and put in the Erft. This creates enough volume to paddle the Erft all year around, it also causes the Erft to be a couple of degrees warmer than the Rhine. Even in the middle of the winter it never freezes, it has clouds of steam coming of its surface. You just put your cold hands in the water and they get warm again. We paddled the last few kilometers from the bridge with the two arches in Neuss to the Sport-Hafen (Harbor) on the Rhine. When we put in, it was only a couple degrees above freezing. I paddled down the left arch slowly to drop in the stopper behind it. It held me for a while until I had enough and went for the nearest eddy. The others clearly weren't interested, since I had been held by that same stopper for a couple of minutes some months ago, with the Erft at flood level. The right arch has a very nice surfing wave under it. We had played around for a while when a massive German in a very small playboat showed up. He tried to do some tricks, but ended up upside down most of the time before he could finish his fancy moves. A kid, about ten years old, gave a great show. He, seemingly without any effort, surfed without using his paddle and did some nice moves. Another group of Germans showed up, and we went further downstream, to a nice wide stopper across the entire stream. The trick here is to push everybody out without being pushed out yourself. The stopper can easily accomodate four to five boats at a time. When there are two or more, you slip in from an eddy and try to surf across the stopper whilst bumping into as many kayaks as you can. I did quite well untill my paddle got caught under water. The next moment I was pushed over it and I had to let go with one hand. I was thinking about doing a hands-only roll when I managed to get the other hand back on. I rolled up to find that I had turned the blade sideways, so no pressure there. I got up anyway... :-) We played for a while, and taught one of our novices how to hang in the stopper. The big German in the small boat showed up again and he tried to do some cartwheels. Unfortunately for him he kept making mistakes, but it looked like fun. I only got the bow of my Diablo pointing up, (stern squirt?) but I couldn't get it to stand on its nose... We went further downstream, practised getting in some tight rocky eddies and tried to paddle over one another. After two drops or so you get to a very smooth wave where it's very easy to do a stern squirt (I think that's how it's called: pushing your stern under a wave to stand up on your bow). Cor tried to get his Hurricane to do what we did with our Diablos and Kendo, but to no avail. All the time Sven did pirouettes and other fancy stuff in his Kendo. Steven and I had a discussion about the stern-stroke we heard about on RBP, and I tried to show him. No matter what he did, it didn't seem work for him. I have to get rid of my automatic duvec as well, half the time I inadvertedly had my paddle in at the front before I realised it was at the wrong end to do a stern-stroke. We got down to one of the higher drops (still less than a meter), where there were two eddies practically on top of one another. It takes some skill to take the first, and immediatly after that to take the second. Unfortunately the high water of this winter had destroyed most of the handmade eddies. Again there is a nice wave at this drop, but in the very large eddy to the left, all kinds of trash was floating around, including dozens of empty bottles. We threw most of the glass bottles out (don't like to step in some glass under water) on the grassy bank. The last eight or so drops between this "big" one and the Rhine don't contain any nice play spots. We went down rather quickly, only stopping in eddies to land on someone who didn't get out quick enough. The cold water of the Rhine reminded us of the air temperature (three degrees Celsius, just above freezing...). We paddled between some river barges in one enormous eddy formed by a groyne and we got out in the Sport-Harbor. This isn't true WW, but you have to find an alternative when the Ardennes and Eifel are dry and dusty... Hope you enjoyed it... Bye, -- Wilko van den Bergh Wilko@stack.nl Sociology Student at the Tilburg University, The Netherlands Whitewater Kayaker AD&D Dungeon Master Secretary of the Eindhoven Canoe Club "De Genneper Molen" -------------------------------------------------------------- No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power. Charles Colton -------------------------------------------------------------- P.S. Spammers, be informed of the installment of a spam-filter on my account. It functions in the same way insect repellent does: It makes sure that vermin like you can't reach me.