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Slow Trip Lost Place Kayak Tour
The Rüdersdorf Museum Park is unique. Nowhere else in the world is there a limestone and mining site preserved in such diversity, showing the juxtaposition of past and present. Here you can experience industrial history up close. But now there is also the opportunity to explore the impressive ensemble of the museum park on a kayak tour of the Strausberger Mühlenfließ.
The meeting point is at the small harbor at the entrance to the museum park. Renè from Aloha Kajak accompanies the tours. He is a passionate water sports enthusiast himself, comes from the area and knows the museum park and its history inside out. The Lost Place kayak tour takes about three hours and we will paddle about four kilometers. You don't have to go to the training camp beforehand, you can just get in and get going. Renè briefly shows the correct paddling technique on the bank, helps everyone get in and then we're off.
To start with, Renè gives a short introduction as to why we can do this tour at all. It is only thanks to a quirk of nature that limestone is mined in an open-cast mine in Rüdersdorf. Millions of years ago there was a sea here. The limestone is pushed upwards and that is why the landscape around Rüdersdorf is so hilly.
The next stop, the former harbor, is a few hundred meters away. The kayak sits well in the water. The sun warms your back. Things are leisurely on the Mühlenfließ. Hardly any motorboats, a few ducks look over at us curiously. Limestone from Rüdersdorf was used to build Berlin's rise to metropolis. The facilities quickly become insufficient and have to be expanded again and again.
One example of how quickly the production of building materials increased at that time is the Adler cement factory. Its origins date back to 1884. After the end of the Second World War, large parts of the plant were dismantled and taken to the Soviet Union. Only the oldest machines and equipment remained - until today. We get really close in the kayaks and can still marvel at a few remnants of the old machines.
Behind the old cement factory, things get adventurous. First, we let a family of swans go first, but they don't let us disturb them, before we drive into the tunnel, the entrance to which we have already seen from afar. We go through the tunnel under a road for about 100 meters before the "mangroves" of Rüdersdorf come to us. The branches of the trees on the bank extend far into the water. It gives us a bit of an Amazon feeling.
The next stop is the former chemical factory, which is now one of the most famous film locations in Brandenburg. Movies, crime thrillers and documentaries have been filmed here and its two chimneys are visible from afar. The attractions now come every minute. Next we stop at the “Rüdersdorf Waterfall”. Here, around 200 bathtubs full of water rush into the Kriensee every minute. The water comes from the open-cast mine. The high lime content makes the water sparkle turquoise in the sun and ensures a good yield for anglers. From the chemical factory we paddle to the end of the canal. The long quay gives a further impression of the dimensions of the entire complex. The end of the canal is also the end of our tour. From here we go back to the small harbor at the museum park.
Conclusion: An exciting tour, refreshed my knowledge of geology, learned new things and did a bit of sport. A successful combination, it couldn't be better.