From p&q@peter-quita.demon.co.uk Sat May 15 11:57:13 1999 Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 15:27:57 +0100 From: Peter Brown Reply-To: canals@blacksheep.org To: canals@blacksheep.org Subject: Trip report - the Lesser Three Gorges Daning river, off the Yangtze River, Wushan, China - 3 May 1999: This was the most exciting boating I have ever done, and in the most beautiful scenery I have ever travelled through by boat. The mountains crowd in, much of the fifteen mile journey being through a deep twisting cleft in the limestone, with vertical cliffs and numerous caves. Because of the rain the previous day, overnight and that morning, the water level was rising and the waterfalls flowed well. As the guide leaflet says, 'Visitors who come here all are attractive, looking intoxicated and stupified.' Dragon Gate Gorge was especially turbulent through the many rapids. The next section, Misty Gorge, was almost as turbulent and even more beautiful: the classic Chinese painting of improbable mountains, hanging trees and swirling mists. Here too we saw monkeys. Our journey up through these and the first section of Emerald Gorge took just over three hours. Our 24 seat boat was identical to the other hundred or so lined up below Dragon Gate bridge: a steel shell with blunt front end for running on to the shore; a powerful and noisy little engine, possibly waterjet rather than propeller; tiller steering from a high position; and with two men out the front with bamboo poles, metal-tipped with spikes, for pushing on the bottom of the rocky river when the rush of water over the rapids was too strong for the engine. At times we made hardly any progress against the flow. We were usually by one bank or the other because the flow tended to be less there, but this meant we were closer to the rocks. On one occasion we ran aground and (with difficulty) were pushed off by the men poling, the boat leaning over at an alarming angle. Other boats added to our problems. We were part of a group of about eight boats going up the river; sometimes we seemed dangerously close to others, and on a couple of occasions we touched. Other boats were coming down, which meant their control of steerage was limited. They showed a white flag in the direction they wanted boats coming up to move; similarly, we showed a white flag confirming or requesting what they should do. Occasionally a boat showed a red flag which meant, 'Keep clear, I'm coming through regardless!' For the journey down the men erected a long oar-rudder at the front of the boat, which was used to guide us when the speed of the water-flow meant we had little steerage capability in the conventional way. The return journey took just an hour, only a third of the time of the journey up. Wow! -- Peter Brown (nb 'Pen Duicks' - but not on this occasion!)