On Wednesday, 4th of July 2012, we headed for a romantic walk in the flats of the Rhine - Hördter Rheinauen, ready to investigate this Natural Reserve, that shows what the Rhine looked like originally. But after just a few metres, we were driven out by myriads of biting mosquitos.
We were lucky, just a few steps away, we reached the dry air of the farmland, full of the scent of grain! What a relief - thanks to Johann Gottfried Tulla, who straightened the way of the river in the early 19th century (Tulla'sche Rheinbegradigung)
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We drove over to the Ferry at Stromkilometer 373: Schnelllastrheinfähre Peter Pan Leimersheim ↔ Leopoldshafen (bis 120t) Nice to mention: a cousin of Tyler spoke the voice of Peter Pan in a Disney Movie.
We were slowly getting hungry and decided to go back to the Fischerheim at the Baggersee in Neupotz, again taking advantage of Tulla, thinking of the infrastructure that allows companies nowadays to extract the gravels from the broad ancient riverbed
ddd
After these refreshments, we drove back to the center of the village of Neupotz to the Haus "Leben am Strom". This is a very old half-timbered house with a brandnew exibition on the changes in peoples lives due to the changes of the river Rhine. The biggest was the mentioned "Rhinecorrection" by Tulla (born 1770 in Karlsruhe, died 1828 in Paris):
- The riverbed was straightened (begradigt) and narrowed down to 200 to 250 metres.
- The loops were cut and the Rhine was 90 km shorter.
- Dikes (levees) were built.
- Due to the narrowing, the riverbed became deeper and the flowspeed of the water increased.
This had a tremendous impact on the stock of fish (Fischbestände) and the former fishing village (Fischerdorf) Neupotz became a farming village (Bauerndorf). Until today, ecologists work on improving the conditions for fish (eg. the Fischtreppe at the Staustufe near Iffezheim).
The floods became less devastating but still many people work hard to be able to control the floods. As floods increase, new means are built: the Hochwasserrückhaltung Jockgrim/Wörth, a huge area gets a new dike to take the floodwaters that - hopefully - will not drown the old town of Cologne anymore.
http://www.leben-am-strom.de/ (under construction 8/2012)
http://www.wald-rlp.de/fileadmin/website/downloads/wandertipps/pfaelzer_rheinauen.pdf (At the Sondernheimer Altrhein, a new floodgate is built and the dikes are raised. You can not cross the Altrhein until sometime in late 2013. If you go by bike, there is a beautiful way around the western edge of the reserve.)
