Belgium 2022-01-30: Packrafting Our

January is drawing to an end when Evert, Tom and I put in at 11 am in the tiny village of Auel, in the very east of Belgium. Today, we will be packrafting the river Our until the village of Ouren, after which we will hike back across the hills.

At first, the weather is rather cloudy, but gradually sunny spells start to develop. Temperature is around 4°C. There’s quite a good flow and packrafting is therefore a lot of fun. Progress is fast and we enjoy many small rapids and little wave trains. We have to carry around one fallen tree, and attempt to paddle a fish ladder and a crumbled old dam.

We take out in Ouren and have lunch, while Evert tries to devise a makeshift backpack, as he forgot to take his real backpack. The end result is pretty decent, and his “construction” will last until the end of the day.

The return hike is scenic and leads through the narrow piece of Belgian territory that is squeezed between Germany to the east, and Luxembourg to the west. The last part of the hike follows a “Ravel”: an old railway line that is converted into a bicycle / walking track.

A little suprising is that the little bridge that used to connect the Ravel to Auel, seems to have disappeared. Not a problem for Evert and I, since our drysuits allow us to easily ford the river. In order to get Tom to the other side, we ferry him over with his packraft.

(Reuland: 8 m3/s)