Wednesday 27th April 2005 KP157 Wrzeszczyna to KP137 Lipica 27.1kms 4 locks

Mikołajewo lock - Wiki photo by Lofthy

4.9º C overnight. Hazy sunshine in the morning, turning to rain in the afternoon. We left at 8.20 a.m. A young man worked lock 18, Rosko. Bill paid. Mike asked if there was drinking water available at the lock. The lad said no, not by the lock, at the house but that was across the weirstream. He said try lock 16 or in the town. Next lock, no 17 Mikołajewo, was operated by a very pleasant woman whose grey dog followed her everywhere. Fanny wanted to play and the two dogs carried on a conversation, while everyone laughed. A bright orange painted car ferry at Ciszkowo was

Pianówka weir - Wiki photo by Rystal

tethered to a wire 6.5m above the river. It had no motor, it was powered by the flow of the river. The ferrymen were busily painting their shed a light shade of grey. A group of fishermen occupied the bank close by the ferry. I sat out on the stern (I’d been busy with the usual chores) for ten minutes before we arrived at lock 16, Pianówka. The young man at the lock said he had no water at the lockside, the house was on the far side of the weirstream too. Above the lock we noted that some of the trees along the banks had chicken wire wrapped around their bases, bet that stops the beavers chewing the tree trunks through. Lots and lots of trees bore the marks of the rodents’ teeth, many had been felled and stripped of bark. I made s

Lipica lock chamber - Wiki photo by Rysnal

ome lunch. It started to drizzle, this soon turned heavier and the brolly came out. As we passed through the town of Czarnkow, we spotted a basin on the right bank with a slipway and several moored tug boats, etc. There were several men working in the yard. We wondered if we should have gone in there for water. At Lipica, lock no 15, several men turned out to work the lock and a lady, smartly dressed in a suit, came to take details of both boats. Mike gave her a previous receipt, but she wanted blow by blow the exact details of each boat. Mike went in the lockside office and she wrote everything down in a ledger. We were the first boats through this year. He asked about water and she told him to ask at the next lock, no 14 Romanowo. We told her we would stop before the next lock. Above the lock there was a series of hefty mooring bollards along the right hand bank. We came to a halt several metres away on rocks. Mike tried getting off the stern with the aid of a plank, but we couldn’t get the boat close enough to the bank without grounding on rocks. We moved on and found a better mooring next to some reeds by a bank that had been burned (which coated the mooring ropes in soot) and Mike banged four stakes into the soft peaty earth. We hadn’t seen any dropped tree trunks – they must tidy them away up here and take them somewhere for chopping into firewood.