Saturday 30th April 2005 Krostkowo to below lk 9 Nakło Zachód KP43. 24.7kms 1 lock

Marsh harrier - Wikimedia photo by Boldings

Colder overnight 3.8º C, a warmer sunny day. Light breeze. Coats off! Set off at 8.25 a.m. after pulling the pins and getting the plank back on board. Mike had to use a pair of Stilsons to free the pin he’d banged into an old tree stump. There were lots of weekend fishermen by the 194 road bridge near Osiek N. Notecią and a wooden landing stage by the bridge with mooring posts! Remember that for on the way back! A little further on we saw a male

A family of wild boar like the ones we saw
Wikimedia photo by Steve Hillebrand

hen harrier, his silver back gleaming in the sunshine as he flew low over the reeds. Shortly after a loud splash caused us to look to the left bank where we were amazed to see a large family of wild boar galloping down the bank and crossing a field drain before running up the other bank and scooting along the edge of the meadow and into the tall dead reeds. There were four adults and upwards of fifteen striped piglets. Wonderful! The little ones short legs were going hell for leather trying to keep up with

Gromadno lock - Wikimedia photo by Przemyslaw Jahr

their parents. A female hen harrier, all rusty brown, was gliding over the rough ground on our right. Two pairs of buzzards were soaring higher and higher, catching the thermals and being attacked by a pair of unidentified smaller birds (crow sized). The flow on the river had reduced to about 1 kph. We arrived at lock 10, Gromadno, at 11.00 a.m. A man on the bank spoke to us in English. He was working in Doncaster as a

Survey boat above Gromadno

security guard and was in Poland for a couple of weeks on holiday. Two men worked the lock, one of them took the details of the boat but no money. The lock was a deeper one at 1.7m rise. When the lock was full the top end gate lowered to the bed of the canal all by itself. The men told us there was a boat coming downriver to watch out for. Bill lead the way out of the lock and Mike gave him a call on VHF radio to tell him to look out for the boat, which we expected to be a

Survey boat passing Rosy

commercial. We passed Rosy and just a few hundred metres further on a survey boat (possibly an old passenger boat) came round the bend towards us. I took ‘photos of it as it went past. Cooked some part baked bread buns in the oven and made some biscuits while the oven was hot. Lunch. The buns were nice and crusty. A pheasant flew right over the boat from one side of

A beaver feast

the river to the meadow on the other, skimming over the roof. I had just remarked that there didn’t seem to be much evidence of beaver attacks on the mature elm trees that had been planted along that stretch of river, when we saw some old tree stumps, long ago chewed away and then some branches in the river with recently gnawed off bark. We arrived at lock 9, Nakło Zachód at 1.45 p.m.  There was no one about so we sat in the chamber and waited. A woman with a couple of kids came and looked over the edge of the deep lock and went away again. We sat chatting for a while and then I went inside to get a few jobs done. Mike went up the ladder and couldn’t see anyone, so he came back on the boat and lay on the sidebed and snored. At 3.00 p.m. the noise of something clattering on the lockside woke him and we went to see if a lock keeper had arrived. Nope. We decided to back the boats out and moor next to a very convenient concrete quay. As we were tying up and packing stuff away two men came to chat in Polish and German. One told us that the lock house was on the far side of the weirstream, but the lock was closed Sunday as it was a holiday. There were shops in Nakło about 500m from a hafen, he said. We will go there on Monday. Great, looks like we’re here until Monday then.