Tuesday 6th July 2004 Minden to Haste.

Sunny! Set off just after 8 a.m. As we went across the old aqueduct over the Weser, which is

A  mountain of salt KP135 MLK - photo from 2005

now just for pleasure boats, (It can’t take the weight of the larger boats! - Sarcastic comment by Mike). A large cruiser took the new aqueduct, which is for commercials, to overtake us at high speed. It was quiet for the next hour and a half. Then we were overtaken at KP 109 by a large square fronted empty 80m called Petershagen. The next bridge was occupied by nesting swallows. Mike put our big oblong blue sunshade up for the first time this year and took it down again less than an hour later. Although the sun was shining most of the time the wind was chilly, so we put our fleeces back on and I made us a cup of soup for elevenses. On our left side was the beautiful forest of Schaumbergerwald and the first red kite of the year was circling on the thermals above the trees. A rough legged buzzard hovered for a while then did likewise, climbing swiftly before gliding off to hunt somewhere else. We had lunch on a 9 kms long straight. It was 1.45 p.m. when we tied up at Haste, KP 138. A small cruiser called Wels had overtaken us some twenty minutes earlier and was now moored in the middle of the pleasure boat section of 50m having lunch. Bill tied on the straight behind him

Moored at Haste in July 2005 (on the way back)

and we winded (due to trees blocking the view to the satellite as we were on the south bank of the MLK) and moored at the other end of the sportbootliegestelle. Helped Mike unload the moped and he drove off to get the post from Bad Nenndorf and the car from Minden. The cruiser left when they’d finished lunch and Bill moved Rosy into the space in front of our bows. I did the chores and prepared Indonesian chicken fried rice ready to cook for dinner on Mike’s return. He was back at 5.30 with a battered package from the bearing company addressed to Bad NN Dorf (even though he’d spelled it out to her!). The new pulley and bush were undamaged, they’d just tried to break out of the two bags and paper that they were wrapped in. After we’d stowed the moped back on board Mike went to change the pulley while I cooked dinner. The new fan belt he’d bought was too short, so he had to reinstall the old pulley. The canal was very busy until late, several boats moored behind Rosy on the 430m long commercial moorings. At 9 p.m. the hotel boat Koningstein went past heading for Minden. There had been lots of gongoozlers on the road bridge and on the towpath - the bench by the bridge was constantly occupied by cyclists taking a breather and a good look at the funny boats. Later a band of teenagers came and sat on the edge of the canal bank by the bridge, chatting and smoking, but caused us no bother.