Tuesday 26th April 2005 KP181 Stary Bielice to KP157 Wrzeszczyna 27.5kms 4 locks

Rosy battling the flow on the river Notec

A milder night at 4.3º C, sunny but still cold with a biting wind. Ready to move off at 8 a.m. when Mike spotted the drip tray under the engine was full of water!  He’d left the manifold drain tap turned on. What a silly thing to do! He spent the next 45 minutes pumping it out. Set off at 8.50 a.m. I steered while he finished sponging the last spots out. Mike put the radio on without plugging it into the 12v system and flattened the batteries. All in all, a good start to the day’s cruising. What next? We entered the lock cut leading to the first lock on the Notec at

Weir below the first lock on the Notec

9.50 a.m. The lock chamber of lock 22, Kzryź, which was empty with both gates open on the 57m long x 9m wide lock. It was just after 10.00 a.m. when Mike climbed the lock ladder after he’d attached our stern rope to a recessed bar in the wall and I’d done likewise with a rope to our side dolly and collected Rosy alongside. A pleasant young man, who spoke no English at all, came and worked the lock (all manually operated). He took details of the two boats and relieved us of 5,68 Złotys each, which we thought was cheap for the trip – thinking we’d paid for all the

Old pans moored on quay below lock 22 Krzyz R. Notec

way to the Vistula. A little long haired Jack Russell dog and a cat followed him around the lockside. We rose 1.5m and wished him “do widzenia” (pronounced doh veedzen’ya) – goodbye! And set off to the next lock some 5 kms distant. A tractor was driving slowly across the broad meadow to out left and the little houses of Drawsko village appeared atop a low bank on our right. The flow on the canalised river was still some 3 kph but the channel was about a metre deeper at 3 to 3.5m. We followed Rosy up to the next lock, no 21 Drawsko, where a pleasant lady keeper worked the lock for us and took all our details again, charging us another 5,68 Złotys for the

Our first lock since leaving Germany

lock (ah-ha! We thought it was cheap! That’s nearly a quid a lock!) An older man came to talk to Mike in German. We rose 1.4m before being let out through one gate on to the 8.4 kms long pound leading to the next lock. I made lunch as we went along the reach. Three deer went cantering across the fields on the right hand bank towards some low wooded hills. The river wound through some tortuous bends before we arrived at lock 20, Wielen. Another lady keeper, but not so pleasant when Bill paid with a

Bill attempting to talk to the Polish lock keeper at Krzyz

20 Złoty note. A middle aged disabled man on crutches (with a bad hip) came to open the opposite gate for her. They opened both gates and closed them again when we’d gone. Above the lock the scenery was flat open fields, with long drifts of white flowers, stretching to low wooded hills on both sides. Springtime flowers, celandines, appeared along the banks and a whole herd of cows were grazing near a couple of pointy-topped hayricks as we neared the town of Wrzeszczyna. The lock of the same name, no 19,

New lock house at Krzyz

was operated by a middle aged man who came to talk to us very seriously in gruff Polish and we hadn’t a clue what he was talking about! It gradually dawned hat he wanted the last receipt so he could copy it!! Fine. I took a ‘photo of the lovely little green wooden house with shutters on his lockside. We presumed it was the old lock house – a more modern house stood about a hundred metres from the lock. We rose another 1.4m and got a receipt each from the lock keeper, after paying another 11,68 Złotys for

New lock house at lock 21 Drawsko

the two boats. His missus came out to join him to say do widzenia. It was almost 5 p.m. when we moored, bows tied to a downed tree trunk – an awkward mooring as the tree sloped toward us. Mike put the plank out off the stern while I held the tiller over to keep the stern as close as possible to the bank. I was holding two thin mooring pins in my other hand as Mike flung the stern rope to the bank, hooking one of the pins right out of hand as he did so – it went in the river! I fetched it out again with the magnet (with the keeper still attached to it –shows how strong these Sea Searcher

Old wooden lock house at 19 Wrzeszczyna

magnets are!) – it had been a long day! Some workmen were fishing a couple of hundred metres upstream of where we moored.