Monday 2nd May 2005 Nakło Zachód to Jnc Notec canal. 19.4km 3 locks

Naklo nad Notecia town form the river

Up at seven. 5.9º C overnight sunny. The lock keeper at lock 9, Nakło Zachód, was dressed in his best uniform when we entered his lock at 8.00 a.m. Mike paid him for five locks and we rose 2.8m. Mike told him we would be pausing for shopping in Nakło, but he didn’t want to know. We moved on into the town and found a mooring at the waterways yard, next to a red painted inspection boat with our bows on the bottom by the bank. A very helpful man came out to take a rope, etc. He even found us a gangplank! OK to stay a couple of hours while we go shopping? Tak! Yes. It was 9.30 a.m. In front of our boat was a Bison tug boat and an accommodation

Fuzzy photo - moored in waterways yard
at Naklo to go shopping

boat for the dredging gang who were working a couple of hundred metres further upstream. Mike liberated our old trolley off the boat roof and gave Bill a hand to get his bike off, I found our rucksacks and we all went into Nakło. Bill went off on his bike to find an Internet café (which was by the Post Office) and we went to post some letters. We went the wrong way to start off with, turning left when we reached the town. I asked

Junc Notec (right) and Bydgoski kanal (left)
Cheating as this pic is from on the way back
Rosy is going downstream

a young man where the Post Office was, using my phrase book - which he read - then told us it was back the way we’d come, fourth turning on the left. We found it and queued to post our letters. It cost 9,50 Złotys to send two envelopes (about £1.60 which was very expensive). Back into the town for groceries, which we bought from a very small and very crowded supermarket. The choice was extremely limited. Most of the vegetables on offer were looking sad, there was no lettuce and the

Josefinki lock 7

spuds were tiny and shrivelled, but the tomatoes, mushrooms, bananas and broccoli were not too bad so we bought some. We added some cartons of longlife skimmed milk and a big bottle of pop, some pasta sauce and a jar of jam to the trolley and I also bought some Polish stuff, smetana (like cream) kroketi (stuffed pancakes) pierogi (meat stuffed ravioli) and a big pack of dumplings as we hadn’t found any decent spuds. Mike asked for some cheese at the deli

counter and got some, no idea what it was. Bread looked OK and I found some toasting bread too. A scruffy bloke who was stood behind us in the queue really stank very bad as if he’d poohed his pants. Spent 82 Złotys (approx £13.50). Loaded it all into two rucksacks, which Mike strapped on the trolley and wheeled it back the 700m to the boat. It was 11.15 a.m. when we got back. Bill returned about ten minutes after us, having spent two Złotys (33p) for an hour in a crowded internet café, but he had also bought very little from an equally rough Netto supermarket. We set off after Bill had eaten his lunch at 12.10 p.m. A bald man wearing a vest, shorts and wellies worked lock 8, Nakło Wschód (east), for us while two women sat on the 

Rubbish minicam pic - moored with plank to bank
Bydgoski kanal summit

lock edge chatting and laughing while the lock filled. His two small dogs yapped at Fanny. We rose 2m on to the kanał Bydgoski. Not far to the last lock before the summit, lock No 7, Jósefinki, where there were good quays both above and below the lock. Two men worked the lock and we rose 2m in the chamber. Noting that there was no lock house by the lock and wondering how we should get a keeper to work the lock when we return, we set off on the summit level which was on a low embankment to start off with, a couple of metres above the surrounding countryside. It was 1.00 p.m and we had 16 kms, almost all of it dead straight, before the first downhill lock. We told the keepers as we left that we would go into Bydgoszcz the next day - jutro - 

Looking down Notecki kanal at jnc with Bydgoski kanal

tomorrow. Six locks left to go down to the Wisła. A boat was coming towards us, which we thought at first look through binoculars was a loaded boat, but when it got closer we could see it was a crane boat being pushed by a small tug. The left bank was covered with silver birch woods, while on the right there were open fields leading to low hills. We concluded that the population must be on holiday when the banks were lined with fishermen and there were lots of small kids playing. I made some lunch and a cuppa. Mike discovered he’d got a job to do when we stopped. The rudder was loose, the welds holding the swan’s neck to the rudder post must have broken. We’d have to get the welder out. Bill had got a broken pulley for his alternator which needed welding too. We moored on the left bank, just before the junction where the Notec canal goes off to the right. Bill had explored the right bank and had ground to a stop some way from the edge. The left bank was shallow and we grounded on a hard sandy, gravelly bottom. It’ll have to do, so we slung the plank out and Mike banged four stakes in the edge of a grassy field. He set to work welding Bill’s pulley first. It had fallen apart, cracked off its boss, so he welded it on. Then he ground off the old welds on our rudder and re-welded that. Three young lads came and made a nuisance of themselves, running up the gangplank on to the back deck and pulling on the mooring ropes while Mike was grinding the weld. I brought the camera out to try and stop that. The ringleader pulled his coat over his head and ran away. Then he came back and lifted both ropes off the two mooring pins by our bows. Luckily there was no flow (as we were on a canal) and the boat was sitting on the bottom anyway. Bill went after them, but they ran away down to the footbridge over the canal beyond the junction. Not being able to talk to them was a strong disadvantage so we decided we’d be better off on the other bank. We fetched all the ropes in and the plank, moved over to the right bank under the trees and Bill put ropes around the trees. It would be a long walk round for them to reach us, as the first lock on the Notec canal was about a kilometre away and the last bridge across was a long, long way back up the Bydgoszcz canal. We had no more trouble with them. I made a Polish dinner, dumplings, stuffed pancakes and pierogi with broccoli - and some leftover curry sauce. Different and very tasty.