h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Wednesday was national holiday here in the lil' ole Grand Duchy.

So I decided to drag us lot up to Belgium for our annual "kayak down the River Lesse" day out. We ignored the heavy showers en route, reassuring oursleves that that patch of blue sky over yonder would be right over the river for our descent.

We had a dit of a dash around the banks of Dinant (birthplace of Sax) to find a cash machine that was a) accessible to mere mortals without that particular flavour of bank card, and b) would accept my obviously rare and uncommon Visa card.

(Banks as in money shops, not the sides of the rather graceful river Meuse...)

While waiting for the train, the heavens opened. Proper giant drops of rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning. Let's see what it's like up river, we said. And, that'll be it over now, we reasoned.

Undeterred by the train ticket man's obvious amusement at our kayak-ward intentions, we continued to ignore the steady drenching we were getting. Sure we'll get wet in the river anyway.

I let my 2 monsters take the first kayak (they argue loudly, but at least I can tell they're still alive from about a mile away....), while brave Reddyfreddy agreed to come with me. We hadnt gone far when the thunderstorm started up again in earnest, leaving us incapable of seeing where we were going!

But it did eventually stop. The sun came out. Our sodden Tshirts started to dry out. Kingfishers flittered under the trees. Little swarms of bright blue dragonflies buzzed around. We were looking forward to a chips and beer stop.

But first - we had to negotiate a barrage. We were a little bit unsettled by the many boats ahead of us that had capsized, but carefully, slowly, we edged up to the right spot, and gently eased the boat over the edge. Tada! Success! We hadnt fallen in.


Then the current caught us, turned us around in a half circle, pushed us straight into the cascading water......and over we went.

Honestly, the euro notes and stamps that were in my purse are STILL damp!

A good one for the memory banks on rainy days..*heeeee*

So intrepid!

The trick with weirs and so on is to go over them in a straight line but as quickly as possible, unless you have to avoid something immediately afterwards...

sprout

Sounds like great fun to me! Just think, you could have been stuck indoors watching the rain come down instead - much better to be out there getting blissfully soggy.

I think the whole of western Europe went rain bonkers this week - it certainly chucked it down here and I could see on the telly it was a deluge in Portugal mid-week too

Ah, 'twas good fun...a lot of people out on the river despite the weather. You could spot the professionals (had the right equipment - a wetsuit!) and a bunch of schoolkids, some of whom had clearly not anticipated that kayaking down a river is going to involve getting wet, regardless of the meteorological conditions.

Stopping for frites and beer is also an added bonus. Plus all the wildlife - aforementioned kingfishers (which I've never seen in the wild before) and what we eventually decided must be wagtails (deduced from their action of wagging their tails a lot), ducks and ducklings (some of whom were quite assertive and had very clear ideas about who the chips rightfully belonged to!)

RF

Of course it's raining, it's Wimbledon fortnight!

Sounds like you had a great time

You're much braver than me, I have no sea-legs at all.

Aaarrrhhh, y'see, I'm an old sea-dog m'self! Jimlaaaad!

RF