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⬅️ Previous capture (2024-08-18)
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16-07-2024
Last sunday we went packrafting. We rented to packraft that we could pick up around 10:00 and had to bring back before 17:00. We did one of the suggested routes of 16km which was 9km walking and 7km packrafting.
The rafts were actually more compact and lightweight than I had imaged before, the paddles were actually more bulky. With the rent there was also a waterproof backpack included which was useful for the walking part and keeping everything dry during the part on the water.
The beginning of the route was typically Belgian: along some roads with cars rushing past us. After about a kilometer and a half the path became a bicycle path and got smaller and smaller until after about 5km we reached the departure pontoon. We inflated the boats with the included inflation bag as per instructions which went quicker than I thought it would. Getting into the boat was easier than with a kayak as it seemed to be less prone to flipping over.
The watercourse was beautiful, both riverbanks were covered in vegetation with a lot of coots and ducks hiding about. We also saw a few kingfishers flying away with the bright blue plumage. There was almost no current on the water and we averaged about ~3km/h paddling which was alot slower than a kayak but that was to be expected, the packrafts are also alot more manoevrable than the sea kayaks we are used to. At first I was a bit afraid about puncture damage since it's a single air compartiment rubber boat, but we navigated through alot of fallen trees on the river and even got stuck on a submerged stump for a while and the rubber of the boat held up nicely without any damage.
When we got out of the water and had to walk the remaining 4km we did notice the backpacks weren't the best for hiking as they were lacking support on the hips.
It was a nice experience and we will definitely do it again. We will probably also buy the gear ourselves as finding rentals was a bit hard, but it's €1000 per raft without paddles or backpack so it's quite expensive.
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