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| Ebre & kayak | The river | Stages | Links |
| Caspe to Flix: 16 15 14 13 12. Mequinensa to Riba-roja (1) km 156.4 - km 136 PDF | 11 10 | |
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| To the Matarranya | |
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Today's layout after leaving the Segre will consists in a big "m" until a long straight line is reached. I lasts up to Matarranya river and the old village of Faiķ. After that, another straight section to Badia Tucana point and Riba-roja camping. There are 38.1 km, 11 of them corresponding to the Matarranya river section, 2 to the Segre and 25 to the Ebre. The Matarranya section could be skipped and that leaves you with a 27 km stage. Another option for doing the Matarranya woul be spending the night in Faiķ's camping, doing only a 24 km etap, and wait for the next day to do the Matarranya, overcome the dam and finishing in Riba-roja or even in Flix. |
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| Up at 5h30, toilet, packing the tent, some tea and biscuits, packing the baggage and into the water at 7h35. At this hour the Segre is still and I am almost recovered from yesterday's fatigue. I have a blister and at the beginning it hurts a little. But soon I'm enjoying paddling even if there is a breeze upcurrent. | |
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I see a wall half submerged and I wonder whether I'm paddling over the old houses of Mequinensa described in Jesus's Moncada book. |
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| I reach the Ebre and leave behind the castle of Mequinensa. I think about the time when this was a frontier area in the XIIth century, like the castle of Miravet. | |
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Soon the breeze
that curled the water's
surface disappears and the clouds are reflected on it. On the right
shore there reedbeds, on the left a pine forest. The river is still and quiet again. I feel again like paddling with the sky under me. |
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| A little beach for a rest if one feels like it., km 152 | |
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I stop for a rest half the way of the "m". It's 10h and I've done 10 km. I don't land, I tie up the kayak to a trunk, stretch my legs, have breakfast, and read for a while. Paddling again at 10h44 until 14h35. Perhaps I should have stopped more often. |
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| Lots of places to stop. | |
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On the right, some wharfs and a hills with a pyramid shape. |
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Just finishing the "m", I get to the longest straight section I've found until now. At the end, the shape from Faiķ church can be seen on the top of a hill. |
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The submerged chimeney of an old factory, km 141.4 |
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1.5 km later there is like a small bay, shallow, still waters, dead tree's trunks emerging in some places, algae. I spend some minutes there. It could have been a place to locate John Evertt Millais's Ophelia. Some fishes can be seen through the green golden algae. I try to catch a snapshot with my underwater camera, but I'm not sucessful. |
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| Ophelia, John Everett Millais, Tate Gallery | |
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Epiphytes |
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The bell tower of the old Faiķ church, with a clock signaling near 2 pm. I wonder if it's still working as ritgh now it's 2h05 pm. |
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| For a while I've been experiencing a breeze that pushes me backwards, at 1 m/s. When the Matarranya river meets the Ebre, there is an abandoned building that once logged the Renfe workers that built the rail line between Zaragoza and Barcelona. | |
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