Monday 4th October 2004 Philadelphia to Zugbrücke, Groß Köris.

Bridge air draft gauge at Philadelphia
Wikimedia photo by E-W

7.2° C Sunny, but a chilly, breezy afternoon. We winded and headed down to the lock at Kummersdorf. An old chap was on duty working the lock.   The Wolzigersee was a placid blue mirror, a perfect reflection of the sky, until we disturbed a great flock of greylag geese which took flight only to land again a few hundred metres away from the boats. I finished the chores as we crossed into the Langersee, the washing finished as we turned upstream on the river Dahme. Mike disconnected the Markon as we went into the Teupitzergewässer. After we’d gone through the Neubrücke bridge and into the Klein Korisersee, the wind began to pick up. Through a chain of three little lakes, Kleiner Modder, Großer Modder and the Schulzen sees. Between the latter two we had a ten minute wait for the bridge keeper at Groß Köris, where we were charged 3 Euros each to pass through the Historische Zugbrücke, which opens every hour on the hour. The cards the lady keeper gave us as a receipt showed a picture of a trip boat passing through the bridge, which said that 122 years earlier Theodor Fontane had passed through with his sailing boat the Phönix and had been inspired to write a book called “Wandering through the Mark Brandenburg” in which he describes the bridge. There might have been a liftbridge there for 122 years, but the current structure certainly was nowhere

Holzernersee - Wikimedia photo by Botaurus

near that age. The base and road supports were of modern concrete and the bridge itself was a modern electrically operated metal one, a steel copy of a Llangollen style bridge. A little police boat, N° 23, was waiting on the opposite side and came through the bridge first. We continued down the channel leading to the last few lakes in the chain. There were loads of leaves in the clean clear water and a very strong smell of poplars in the air. Into the Schulzensee, through another narrow channel and out into the Zemminsee, which connected to the Schwerinersee and then the Teupitzersee. We did a clockwise circle around the two islands at the end of the big lake then headed back, retracing our course. A trip boat

Teuplitzer see - Wikimedia photo by Wusel007

had set out from Teupitz and we had followed it back through the lakes, but it winded in the last lake before the liftbridge and we met it on its return journey, coming back south, and passed it in the narrow channel under the motorway bridge, north of the Zemminsee. More power boats passed us, heading south to play in the lakes, as we waited a half hour for the bridge keeper to arrive for the 4 p.m. opening. She let us through and we asked if we could stop on the far side of the bridge, she reluctantly said yes. At 4.10 we tied to the wooden piling, using chains around the horizontal wooden bars to stop our ropes jamming between the logs. While we were eating dinner we spotted a woman walking up and down and thought she was just having a look at the boats. Bill said later she owned the land that we were tied to and she wasn’t at all happy about us being there - she spoke severely to Bill, telling him we were only allowed to stay there to wait for the bridge, but finally she said OK

we could stay overnight.