Knoodeling down the canal

Canoeing down the Ohře, more precisely.

One week into Amber's new school term the first outing is planned. It is to be a canoe trip. The parents are keen to go along to meet other parents and school peeps, and mingle a bit whilst having some fun with the girls.

What is more, faaaall (as the Americans say - to the English-speaking world "Autumn") can be seen storming down on us and this is a good time to enjoy the outdoors before it arrives.

The trip is going to take up Saturday, and is scheduled to begin about an hour south of Prague at Tynec, but there is not enough water in the river, and so we will paddle the Ohře between Hrad Loket (a very nice castle) and Karlovy Vary, our oft-visited haunt.

The country out there is picture pretty and so we are all looking forward to it.

All the necessary prep was done on Friday, which was simultaneously our anniversary date night, and so it was a late and somewhat wined night.

Needless to say, the Wood household, slow in the mornings when speed is in the air, was out of the starting blocks about an hour after the pistol sounded. Our trademark haste was in evidence as we scrambled for the subway to the meeting point. However, as we left the apartment, it became clear that summer, which has been ruling unopposed for the last weeks had abdicated, faaaaall was negotiated out of the deal, and winter seemed to have everything under control.

Ignoring the immediate exclamations from the girls as we left the building, we somehow convinced ourselves and out offspring that it would warm up as soon as we got into the sun. Problematically, the sun didn't show up.

Chilled, we arrived at the departure point, a full 30 minutes late and, thank heavens, not the last to arrive! Logistics sorted, we make for the hills and, apart from Sarah returning her early-morning Mc Donalds chocolate doughnut partly digested into a cardboard cup, the trip went along smoothly enough.

Upon arrival at the river, the temperature was a bold 7 degrees, and I'm not talking about the water. 7 degrees is not ordinarily any kind of problem at all, but when all you are prepared for is the mid 20's, 7 is a challenge. 7 with wind is even worse... we had wind.

*sigh*

Leslie (the principal) giving the law and safety drill to a shivering crowd.

It was cold! The change of clothes we'd taken in case one got wet were put on, with the raincoats over that to keep the wind out.

That, with the addition of a life jacket worked long enough to get us onto the river, and then, with all the exercise, the warmth came back... slowly.

We 4 were on a raft with another couple, so remained together for the duration. We had considered taking 2 canoes instead of the raft, but the thought of being lone paddlers for the entire trip seemed a tough ask and so we opted for the raft thinking it would be easier...

Praise the Lord, Hallelujah and glory to God... the sun came out almost as soon as we were on the water. The river lit up and was a real beauty...

Enlarge the one above... moments before, or should that be minutes before, all the leaves you see on the surface of the water were falling from a tree on the river bank, right in the middle of a sunbeam. It looked like giant, golden glitter bits falling onto the water. I wanted to capture it on camera, but you know... the camera was in a zip-lock bag as a precaution and, as with so many other precautions, by the time I had finished dealing with them, the magic moment had passed! Bother! From that moment forward, the camera ran the risk of swimming precaution free! It's close enough to upgrade time to take a little risk ;)

We stopped for some well-earned lunch at this wonderful spot on the river, opposite a rock-climbers paradise, with a good number of them in paradise.

All my girls attending to hunger on the river bank.

This was the lunch stop, looking ahead from the previous shot - BTW, all these photos are geotagged, so, you can have them show up in Google Earth, MS Maps etc if you feel inclined. I want to find an easy way of doing this right here in the blog, but haven't gotten around to that just yet.

Now all filled up, back to nature and the shallow river Ohře.

Job (the organiser), his wife Jana and their mutt Alex, enjoying the ride.

Apart from stopping to go around a weir (which would have been WAY more fun to go over) we didn't stop until we got to Karlovy Vary and the endpoint.

De-boated, and in the little remaining sunlight of the afternoon, the kids had some fun running around while we waited for everyone to arrive and trek all the way back to Praha again.

Only 2 of us were awake by the time we got home, and we all 4 will be sleeping well!