Tuesday 28th September 2004 Hermsdorfer M. to Märkisch Buchholz and back.

Weir and hydro-electric power station Markische Buchholz

A very chilly 5° C overnight. Grey and showery, sun came out very briefly. The next lock upriver didn’t open until ten, so we had a lie in and left at 10.15 a.m. I defrosted the ‘fridge whilst I did the usual chores. The lock was emptying as we arrived. The lock keeper, a gnarled old chap, wouldn’t let Bill bring Rosy into the empty chamber alongside us. We kept telling him that the lock was plenty wide enough at 5.3m, but he either didn’t understand or just wouldn’t listen! A younger man on the lockside with him seemed to understand English as he nodded in the right places when I said to him that the keeper was the boss, it’s his lock and we’re in no hurry. The keeper told us (quite loudly) that the river was navigable for only seven more kilometres (which we already knew) and also showed me his log book to point out that the lock was closed from the end of September. I told him we would be back

Sign board below weir

later in the afternoon. The lock had been shortened from 41m to 28m when it was rebuilt in 2000 and had a sloping right hand wall like the previous lock. We waited above while Bill brought Rosy through the lock. A new bootschlepper (railway with a little cradle on a bogie) had been built at Märkisch Buchholz to take small boats of less than 350kgs around the weir and miniature hydroelectric power station to the continuation of the Dahme above, which was called the Umflutkanal or flood water channel. We could go no further into the Spreewald, so we moored next to the quay (after bouncing off a rock) for the bootschlepper and had lunch. Mike found a board listing the opening and closing times of all the locks in the locality. He was a bit perturbed by the fact that several were listed as closing on the 3rd October. We set off again heading back downstream (with very little flow) back down the Dahme with Rosy in the lead.  Hooray the sun came out, but shortly after the rain started again. Rosy was in the lock at Hermsdorfer Mühler with a green light still on and

Moored below the weir at Markische Buchholz
end of navigation river Dahme

the keeper called us in. Why the change of mind? We had no idea as we couldn’t communicate with the chap. But he was very quiet and smiling, so perhaps the chap who understood English earlier explained a few things to him? Who knows? We went back down the lock together. A couple were on the lockside chatting to him. They all waved as we left. We tied up twenty minutes later back at the same old quay. In the big meadow between the river and the forest there was a large herd of beef cattle - cows and their calves plus the bull. The day before they had been further towards the lock, today they had been moved to next section of meadow which was next to the quay. There was an electric fence surrounding them, but we suspected that it wasn’t connected although no one volunteered to try it and neither did the cows! Bill kept Fanny well away from them when they went out to play with her frisbee ring. The next shower arrived as Mike put the dish up. The sat finder, which had been for a swim earlier and had been drying out in the engine room with its back cover off, was refusing to work. With a little persuasion it found Sky. The weather was too wet for a BBQ, which we’d all been looking forward to so I grilled the rump steaks we had been saving for a BBQ.