10.6° C Overcast and cold start
15° C. Misty to start off with, then the sun burnt through, but clouds built up
later and became windy too. Early away again at 7.15 a.m. Mist was
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| Schwedtsee - Wikimedia photo by Christopher Voitus |
covering the
lake as we ran into Fürstenberg, following Rosy down to the lock. Above the
lock a very realistic look dragon was moored - it even had an articulated tail!
An infatable overtook us and went into the lock first. A lady keeper worked the
lock for us, pressing the buttons to empty the chamber and we dropped down 1.7m.
It was ten past eight as we went into the Baalensee. There was only a slight
mist just above the surface of the water on the little lake, but when we went
through the narrows into the larger Schwedtsee it was obvious that unless we
waited until the sun burned the mist away there would be no photos of the
monument at
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| Stolpsee - Wikimedia photo by Tiberius 123 |
Ravenbrück on its shore today. A Locaboat hireboat came up off the
Havel and went into the hirebase on the bank of the lake opposite the site of
the concentration camp. Bill gave up waiting for a photo opportunity and we
winded and went into the short section of the Havel which lead into the
Stolpsee, a much larger lake and the beginning of another series of lakes
leading to a dead end at Lychen. I made tea and by 9 a.m. the sun was out and
the last traces of mist had gone. A medium sized, wedge-shaped speedboat
cruiser called Lea raced us for the turning off the lake at Himmelpfort. He
lost as we were well in front anway, so he stood no chance. I turned
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| Himmelpfort lock - Wikimedia photo by Botaurus |
the green
bar for the automatic lock as I slung a rope around one of the cabin-high
wooden stumps. It took ages for the lock to empty (we’re going uphill again)
considering that it was only 1.2m deep. In the meantime a young lady with a
clipboard came to ask questions. Unforunately she didn’t speak any English and
so I attempted to fill in her questionaire for her by reading her list of
questions and she ticked off what were probably the usual answers! She was from
the local tourist office and her boss was doing the same with the boats
arriving above the lock. Mike gave up and left me answering the questionaire
and went to take a rope off Bill to moor Rosy alongside us. The couple on the
cruiser looked very miserable, it couldn’t have
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| The beautiful winding Woblitz - Wikimedia photo by Tobias 1986 |
been just because they weren’t
first in the queue for the lock. Two small cruisers eventually emerged from the
lock and we went up side by side with Rosy and the cruiser behind us. The lake
above was another shorter one, called Haussee. I swept the minute tree seeds
and dead flies off the roof that we’d collected overnight. The next section of
linking narrow channel was called the Woblitz and was one of the most prettiest
we’d found in all the Germany lakes. It’s narrow and very winding and runs
through the forest. A trip boat from Lychen stopped on the far side of a 180°
bend to let us through first, we both needed all the
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| Grosse Lychensee - Wikimedia photo by Dietzel |
width of the channel to
get around the long sweeping bend. The Woblitz lead into another large lake,
the Großer Lychensee, with three islands in the middle and two big bays on our
right. We went to the right (south) of the largest island, while Bill went to
the left (north side). As we went past the island we could see a house on the
island facing us almost hidden by trees. Its outbuildings were falling down and
I thought the property looked derelict but then I saw a man on the far side of
the island. We went through a short narrow channel under two bridges and into
the Stadtsee, a small peardrop shaped lake which is the last navigable lake in
the chain. We stooged around,
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| Lychen - Wikimedia photo by Doris Antony |
noting that there was a mooring on the north bank
at Lychen, 26m long - its first 11m was set aside for paddle boats and the rest
of the space (15m) was for cruisers to moor bows or stern ends to the wooden
landing. No good for us - but at least they have now made provision for boats
to moor there. We wondered if it was free of charge there. Rosy went through
the bridges leading to the big lake and we paused to let the tripper through on
its way back to its mooring in Lychen. We went back down the Großer Lychensee,
passing to
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| Cistercian cloister ruins at Himmelpfort Wikimedia photo by Botaurus |
the north of the big island and spotted a man sitting under the
trees - so the house must be inhabited. We followed Rosy back down the Woblitz,
which was peaceful and quiet, after the masses that were out cruising in the
region the day before, a sunny Sunday, we saw only a couple of cruisers, one sailboat and a
couple of paddlers moving. We passed a large cruiser with a very
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| Cloister brewery - Wikimedia photo by Benutzer Exxu |
other words a tripper had overidden the automatic lock. We chatted to the man
who had been doing the survey and he confirmed it was waiting for a trip boat.
The lock didn’t empty but re-opened about twenty minutes later when Havelstomer
reappeared. It went down the lock and we had to wait for the lock to refill
before we could go down. We tied up at 2.30 p.m. below the lock at Himmelpfort,
with our stern end on the very end stump of the lock waiting area (there were
more stumps but they had no bank access) and Bill gave us a hand to unload the
moped using a plank. Mike went to collect the car from Voßwinkel. The trip
boats were having a good day, going up and down the lock all afternoon. I gave
Mike a hand to get the bike back on board. The pay mooring on the opposite bank
was now all automatic, coins in the slots for water and electricity - and an
overnight mooring permit was from a parking ticket machine! Chicken and
mushroom curry for dinner. After dinner we went for a walk round the old town
of Himmelpfort - “Heaven’s Gate”. The old monastry looked derelict except for a
display of paintings in the end windows. I was convinced that it was still a
working monastery when we were there last and that there were typical products of
the monastery’s herb garden (still in existence opposite the old kloster, but
now full of flowers) such as honey, mead, perfume and such like, looking at the overgrown ruins I must have been thinking of somewhere else.
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