A Visit to the New Calabar River, Aluu Community, Rivers State.

Photo: The New Calabar River, Aluu, Port Harcourt Nigeria

The day started off after an extensive Google map viewing of the direction to the New Calabar River. This big river has 5 major sections which are situated at various communities in Obio-Akpor and Ikwerre LGA.

Photo:M O'War Road Aluu

I told hubby we have to find a good route. I don't want to run into any unknown dead end😂. Google Map has become a good drive guide to unknown places in recent times. It's my go-to direction and location app, asides using it for my volunteering work as a Google Local Guide.

His study needed some data for hydro work. Due to a barricade built around the river, we decided to go through the African Regional Aquaculture Center (ARAC) just close to the bank of the river.

From the map, we saw a 9-min drive from Rumuagholu to Aluu (the community where we can see a section of the river).

On getting to ARAC, we were able to get a Local guide who took us round the sections of the river:

We visited the larger reach of the river, and then two smaller ones.

How amazing how the river is so peaceful and relaxing. The soothing breeze in the community, the greenish ambience of the vegetation, chirping birds and beautiful road network. This larger part has a good bank with an old marine store, perhaps used by the colonial leaders in the past. Here, it's brackish water with quite a depth. Activities carried out here are mainly research, fishing and transportation. The river bank is messed up with oil spills. One of the cons of illegal oil bunkering and improper disposal of waste.

Moving forward into the village, we visited the smaller part of the river (I would say a tributary to the larger one). It's a freshwater river that's not as deep as the earlier one. It's used mainly for domestic uses, fishing, dredging and swimming activities. Quite a beautiful sight to behold! We enjoyed seeing the villagers dive from the hill into the lower water and submerge before floating a few minutes later. They were friendly, I must commend. Infact, people living in the riverine areas are great swimmers.

Villagers have clusters of houses around this side of the river. We saw average sized electric fishes swimming around the banks. Remember rivers both feed flora and fauna! At this part of the river, asides photos, I also took a 360° imagery I published on Google map; https://www.google.com/maps/@4.9224994,6.8965433,3a,75y,20h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sAF1QipMgUKEnXtmsZwEkRCGN7FsyDhS4YslJmdZa73Yo!2e10 (If you need this for your business, school or workplace, you can send me a message).

Then, we moved to the center to see the flow pattern at this side of the river. It's quite beautiful overlooking the sandy hill and river. It's broader than the smaller one previously visited. Another good thing to note is that the water is brackish here and enters directly into the bigger one.

Lots of dredging activities are done here. Other usefulness of the river include fishing, swimming and transportation. This side of the river is quite vital for travellers to Isiokpo community. They board their jetties at the bank of this river and paddle across. It's quite shorter than following through the Emuoha-Isiokpo road route especially for traders that carry perishables such as fresh and roasted fishes into the urban areas. We saw a few women trekking to the bank that has jetties. My baby was already tired so we didn't get to that side of that bank 😂. Yesterday's sun was really scorching. God bless these local traders. See all they go through to ensure food security in the urban areas. A good bridge can solve transportation problems and ensure food availability and affordability in the City.

It was quite an interesting, educational and relaxing experience. The guide explained so many things about the river and how it enters into the lagoons and creeks of the Atlantic ocean. Also, cultural and economical heritage of the river, and the reasons for most of the barricade.

Let's endeavour to keep our water bodies clean, they provide much more than we can tell.

I'm sure I have penned a lot here, hope you find calmness just like the river while reading my exploration 😆. Next time you need to unwind, go swimming or sightseeing by a riverside. Please don't jump if you can't swim o.

Every picture has a story, I'm glad to share.

Beautiful view of the larger reach of the New Calabar River at Aluu community

🎥: Shot and edited by me
Location: Omuihuechi/Omuochi Aluu Community, Ikwerre Local Government Area, Rivers State.

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