A day trip in Spreewald on a kayak

Today, I woke up at 7:00am to visit an area called Spreewald located 100 km South of Berlin towards Dresden. It’s apparently a UNESCO recognized biosphere reserve and is a floodplain with lots of water: you can paddle through canals (more than 200 of them!) instead of walking through streets to get from one place to another.

It was a 2h train + bus ride from central Berlin to Lübbenau, a town in the Spreewald forest. It cost me 12.50 euros one way. I went with a lovely friend J who came up with this whole idea (thank you!). Our plan was very last minute, but I’m glad we managed to make this happen!

The way was a little complicated because there were 3 transfers with very little time, but we managed to reach Lübbenau train station at around 10:00am. There are lots of boat/kayak rental places in Lübbenau but since it’s a popular tourist destination in the summer, we were super lucky to be able to book kayaks so last minute (according to J, 2 weeks advance booking is recommended.) Because of this, we both booked a kayak at different places and our plan was to meet up somewhere along the canals on our kayaks.

This turned out to be quite difficult though. I rented from Bootsverleih Richter (25 euros for the whole day). I booked a kayak for one person and chose the less stable ‘sporty’ version, but if I had to do it again, I would choose a 2+ person kayak and a more stable ’less-sporty’ version. (More on these later)

They gave me a map and off I went into the water. My next mission was to find J while holding a paddle and my phone in both hands. I was trying to get used to the boat which felt very unstable while searching for the internet to call J and to find my way while dodging boats after boats that came behind me.

The ways are fairly clearly marked around Lübbenau - after all, the canals are the main sources of attraction. There are signs everywhere (written in both German and Sorbian - it’s officially a bilingual region!) but it took us a good hour to find each other after bumping into lots of other boats. There were a few times I thought I’d flip over, and I wish I had brought a more properly waterproofed bag + phone case.

We met up in Lehde which was a nice little village with cafes by the canals. We then went down to Südumfluter and headed east along Freiheitskanal towards Leipe. We got off the boat, ate some fish sandwich, ice-cream and beer and headed back along Eschenfieß. There were 2 locks, places for raising/lowering boats between different levels of water in a river.

The water was shallower and calmer than I had imagined. Trees protected us from the sun and the occasional breeze felt nice and cool on the skin. There were lots of beautiful blue dragon flies flying around the white lotuses floating on water. The bigger canals were quite crowded but once we went into smaller canals, it was just us. J and I talked shared random bits and bobs about our lives including some fun & peculiar dating episodes in Berlin.

I learned that you can also do multi-day kayaking tours and even kayak all the way to Berlin (approx. 5 days). I imagined camping overnight somewhere and paddling very early in the morning would be beautiful. Another thing to add to my endless list of to-dos. The rentals also seemed to be open in winter - kayaking in the snow would be really nice too, or a bit too cold, won’t know until I try it out!

Paddling on water made me ponder a little on my past year and a half in Germany. I’ve always loved the simplicity of activities like kayaking, hiking or biking - because the body wanders, it helps to stop my mind from wandering too much. At the same time, the motions are simple enough for your mind to reflect on certain thoughts with a distance, or at least that’s how I feel about them.

I want to jot down one thought that stuck with me that I want to remember. It’s very random and unrelated, but since I associate thoughts with places and vice-versa, I think it’s good for me to write this out. If you’re a stranger visiting this page, please skip my rambling to the very end.

J and I were talking about our jobs which made me think about how my job has affected me over the past year. I work in customer support in a small IT company and my daily job is to ask one simple question: “How can I help?” - this has saved me from so many self-destructive thoughts and questions. It’s allowed me to shift focus away from myself and to see how I wanted to exist in relation to others, rather than trying desperately to figure out WHAT I wanted to do. This is so cringe-y just writing out aloud, but it’s a thought I kind of want to hold on to, so there it is.

We managed to get back to our rental places without getting too lost and got out of the water around 18:00. Had our cappuccinos and walked around the town of Lübbenau before heading back to Berlin. I got home around 22:00 before it got dark outside. I’m so happy to have met J on this trip and had a really nice Sunday. I’d love to bring my parents here one day too, but maybe not on a weekend (a little too crowded).

I’m writing this on a Monday morning and am genuinely excited to get back to work. I feel blessed to get to say that, and I feel refreshed - which is how I know I’ve spent the weekend in a meaningful way.