Some Of My Favourite Rivers

Inspiring herself with another great post about Rome today, Ailsa (of Where’s My Backpack?) has come up with Rivers as her Travel Theme this week. This is particularly appropriate, since the A to Z Challenge letter for the week is ‘R‘ and the Daily Post‘s Photo Theme is On the Move, and rivers obviously never stop moving (otherwise they’d be called lakes!).

Like most born tourists, I’ve got photos of a hundred different rivers. But the first to come to mind when I read Ailsa’s post were a pair of watercourses that both claim to be the Shortest River in the World. The first is the River Aril, which flows into Lake Garda in northern Italy, in the foothills of the Alps, and is only 175 metre long (574 metres).

The second is the oddly-named D River that flows into the Pacific in Lincoln City, Oregon, and is only 134 metres long (440 feet).

The numbers imply that the D River wins this particular competition. Although I personally think the Aril is the more photogenic.

Speaking of photogenic, you’d be hard pushed to beat the Neva River as it flows through St Petersburg, Russia (see Baltic Adventures: Part II).

Or the underground river of Río Secreto, which I coincidentally wrote about in my post called Mexican Underworld earlier this week.

Or climbing Dunn’s River Falls in Jamaica.

But my favourite type of river flows much slower than any of those I’ve mentioned so far. Because the water that makes them up is frozen.

I’ve been fascinated by glaciers since I first came across them. Since then I’ve driven onto one (the Athabasca Glacier) in a massive Ice Explorer in Jasper National Park, Alberta…

And in Alaska…Wow! I’ve flown over them (including the Taku Glacier pictured below) in a helicopter on the way to ice-hiking on one called the Hole in the Wall, near Juneau…

…I’ve seen the Hubbard Glacier calve icebergs into the sea from the deck of a cruise ship…

…And I’ve looked down from thousands of feet above the isolated Kennicott Glacier after hiking to an abandoned copper mine in the mountains of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.

Come back on Monday for more about my adventures in the ghost towns and mines around the Kennicott Glacier. In the meantime, why not sign up and follow my continuing Journeys here at Jaspa’s Journal, or through my website,  Facebook, Twitter and Instagram?

And if that’s not enough for you, there are now three Jaspa’s Journey novels to enjoy as ebooks! Perfect for Kids 8 – 80!