Because of the recent storms – and by that I mean the whole last ten days – I paddled in the harbor a lot. To have a longer stretch of flat water I decided to do a training on the river Aulne: a descent on the lowest part between the last lock and Rade de Brest. As this part of the river is influenced by the tides I made sure that I paddled with the outgoing tide, otherwise the 22km would have been a long training.

The entrance at the lock is easy and equipped with nice stairs to enter the water. In the background you can see the cool old bridge, which you can paddle under when training between Port Launay and Châteaulin, but this time I was headed downstream.

So off I went into the turbulent currents right after the lock. First thought: do not fall into this brown soup.

Traversed into the current and the river took me downstream.

After a short distance the water calmed and the last signs of civilization faded. The whole first part of the descent I only saw reeds and trees.

I discovered this house in the middle of nowhere. Seems like a pretty cool place to live.

The training on the program today was a interval session for a total of two times 26 minutes, which I started after four kilometers.

In the second part my luck with the weather ended and it started to rain, lucky me that I had chosen the drysuit and not some other combination.

After the intervals and the rain I came to see the bridge – which felt great because from the bridge it was only about two kilometers to the parking where I had planned to exit the water.

And I came in sight of the bridge too, as some kind of Ant-Man at first.

Then a bit closer.

And after the bridge and the last two kilometers I arrived at the exit spot. My calculations have been pretty good as it took me about 1h50min to complete the 22 kilometers.

I can only recommend this tour, it is so beautiful and calm. A good idea would be to take some lunch and split it into two parts if you are not on a race board and in training mode. Take a good look at the tides and the wind when you plan. It will definitely not be the last time I paddled it myself.