If you should find yourself in Belgium with an Alpacka looking for a fairly casual river trip I would recommend the Semois, near the border with France. It’s class II max, mostly class one, but through some very pretty country. It has the advantage of snaking more than any river I’ve ever seen which means that 5km of walking can give you an easy 15km of rafting back. Plus it’s full of fish.
The last time we did it, we rafted into the town of Boullion which has a really cool castle perched right over the river. It’s an impressive sight from the water.
The river Dyle flows right through the historic city of Leuven (only 15 minutes from Brussels by train). If you put in a couple miles upstream of the city you get to float past a 17th century waterwheel, an impressive castle, a nice park, and then into/through the city itself. This is all calm water easy paddling since this area of Belgium is flat. The only thing to worry about is the fact that you cannot get out of the river once you enter the city itself, you’ll be surrounded by high walls throughout. People will also assume that you have lost your mind.
After 3 years of trying to find places to packraft in Belgium… I’ve finally moved back to the US.
Should anyone ever find themselves in Belgium with a packraft and some time to kill… you’re basically out of luck. In addition to the two floats mentioned above, you can play around in the Lesse and the Ourthe but there’s only a few miles of these rivers that are good rafting. Too far upstream and it’s shallow, too far downstream and it’s boring.
I guess I should define “good rafting” then. For me, good rafting means some bumps and mild whitewater. Nothing that requires too much skill or ability. But also not too flat and slow. If you’re at all interested in real whitewater then there’s nothing on these rivers at all.
But I enjoyed rafting the Lesse upriver of Daverdisse and the Ourthe around the same general area.
