Today was the annual duck race in my hometown. As you might have read in many other blog posts is the fact that here in my hometown is barely anything to do with the exception of a few events a year. One might say that they roll up the sidewalks here in the afternoon. This means that having such event is pretty much one of the main activities for the people here. Besides this sunday was also a “Sunday Shopping Day” as normally shops are closed on Sundays. This year marked also the 12th anniversary of this event here and was celebrated with tons of activities for children.
So what is this duck race? Basically it is a “race” of rubberducks down the pond and stream here in this town. Duck Races can be found all over the world but thus far I have only visited this one here. Any person can purchase a duck for a few Euros and gets a number for the duck. By buying one of this ducks you can participate in this race and have the chance to win some nice things such as a 2000€ travel voucher, a new TV etc. The avail of this event is later on donated to some charity programs.
The race starts by pouring all the ducks from a container which is lifted by a crane into the pond. The pond and the little river have a little race track/ plastic barriers so that the ducks follow a specific route till they arrive at a bridge few hundred meters away. Depending on the weather the whole competition might take 20 minutes or even several hours! This year we missed the start of the race as little Nathan took his sweet time waking up from his nap so we arrived few minutes too late. But we were still early enough to see the beginning of the race when all the ducks were massed up before slowly spreading all over the race track.
The pond and the river are at a little park located in the center of Neumünster and everywhere some attractions were offered for kids. Especially the radio controlled helicopters and ships interested many fathers as well (me included)! Somehow I feel like purchasing an own radio controlled helicopter now myself to harass some of the annoying neighbours but I guess that would be a bad idea…
It is too bad that Nathan is still too young to fully understand everything around him and enjoy some of the attraction for the children such as the jumping castle, some little animals from the zoo or the before mentioned radio controlled vehicles. Anyways this event seems to be going strong and I have no doubt it will still be held once Nathan is old enough.
Have you visited a Duck Race in your region or during travels?
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And who says the Germans don’t know how to have fun?? It actually sounds like a great way to spend the evening. Can you tamper with the ducks and make them “swim” faster?
I actually don’t know if you can tamper them a bit as I never participated myself thus far. But I saw some ducks which were painted so sneaky me would probably apply some kind of special paint which makes the duck float better same as in swimming sport those rubber suits in 2009 when world records were broken daily…
This is by far the funniest yet most adorable thing I have read!! I want to attend it someday 😀
Perhaps they even got something like thati SA? I know that at least ineurope they do it I many countries 🙂
Duck Race! They have this competition around the country in Australia a few times a year, usually for a charitable cause. I remember seeing in the news of the one in Sydney a while back and that had a gigantic rubber duck at the starting line – for props 🙂 Haha, that lonely duck looks like it’s crying 😀
Speaking of jumping castles, I am not a huge fan of them. Jump too high in the air and land back down, who knows if your leg will break or not.
I always loved jumping castles. The thing is not about jumping too high in order to break a leg (afterall kids can jump down a couple of meters from a tree without any troubles) but landing on someone else. Landing on someone/ crashin will always result in some injury..
Oh yes, the falling on someone else in the jumping castle. That would be terrible and you could end up with broken bones. But I’m sure Nathan will be game enough to try it when he is older. You know, I can’t imagine MIL jumping on the jumping castle…
Oh I am not that sure about MIL. She could be very well jumping around just to proof something again to us :p
For a moment I thought it was a race with real ducks!! haha
Haha, that is actually what my wife thought the entire time. On the way to the event I had to explain that its just rubber ducks 😀
Must be very cute to see all those rubber duckies going down the pond!! Intro pic is awesome, BTW – Great shot!
Thank you, sometimes I get lucky with some of my pictures 🙂
It looks really amazing to see so many rubber ducks floating around. I read in the newspapers that over 6000 ducks were bought and floating, a new record for this event in my hometown
It’s a very attractive setting for a race. I don’t suppose people bet on their duck the way they bet that their favorite horse will win the race.
No, they actually dont bet on the ducks. Weeks before the race the “shop” opens where people can purchase one of the ducks and get a number. The first 500 ducks finishing the race will get some prize (1st is a 2000Euro holiday voucher, 2nd a 1000Euro TV and so forth )
The setting is really nice as it is in the small park and pond within the city center. However before the race they cleaned up a lot of trash floating around, I always wonder why people have to throw their trash into the nature
Never come across this before, I’m sure it would be popular with the kids, thanks for sharing.
It certainly is especially thanks to the many events taking all around the race just for children 🙂
How lovely, miss those days when the kids were little…
Our organization does have a duck race….it’s to raise money for local charities. Over 2,000 ducks are purchased by hopeful employees.. but only 1 wins.
You know… we’ve NEVER seen such a thing until we were in Burgos, Spain last year. It is a lot of fun to watch. From a distance, we saw these yellow blobs in the water and had no idea what they were until they passed us under the bridge we were standing on. 🙂
I remember the pictures from one of your blog posts about that race 🙂