Monday 13th June 2005 Below lock 9, Nakło Zachód to KP 102.

Paddle gear at Gromadno

Cold 1.3º C overnight. Sunny but breezy morning. Windy in the afternoon and a very heavy rain storm later. Mike was up at seven and we were off at 8 a.m. with the sunshade up - but not for long when the wind picked up. We had revs to do 6.5 kph but were doing 8 kph - so the flow on the Notec was around about a gentle 1.5 kph. Some of the meadows on the left bank had been cut, the grass now lay drying before being gathered in. A buzzard hovered over the field looking for furry things for breakfast - we had tea and toast. Into lock 10, Gromadno,

Wide open landscape of the Notec valley

where the keeper, a pleasant middle-aged man, was wearing a grey cowgown and a baseball cap. The top end gate lowered and we went in and Bill brought Rosy alongside. The lock was already paid for (we had paid for five at Nakło). Mike got off and took a photo of the paddle gear, which is like Hatton’s enclosed worm-geared paddles, but with a horizontally extending marker instead of the large white cylinders that they have on Hatton. They were made by Fritz Hantz & Co Nordhausen. We left the

Rosy about to go under the 190 road bridge

bottom at 9.45 a.m. following Rosy along the shallow lock cut back into the flow of the Notec. Bill was going slow, Mike went slower so as not to catch up. He told Bill we couldn’t take photos of him if he was behind us as the sun was behind us too. Had a cup of soup, new stuff, Polish-bought Knorr chicken noodle. Cheap and tacky, greasy and thin on ingredients. Mike took photos of Rosy going under the 190 bridge, with the Debowa Gora hills in the background. Down lock 11, Krostkowo, where a

Bill on rope duty at Krostkowo lock

young man worked the turf sided lock (no sign of the two teenaged girls who worked it last time - probably at school). Bill took Rosy in on the left and we hung on to the stumps on the right. On the way in we took a photo of the last surviving needle weir on the Notec. Lunch - the usual salad. It was windy as we wound round the bends of the river as it meandered across a very wide flood plain for the next 43 kms before the next lock. Around KP 92, we passed a beautiful little sail-assisted, two-person, rowing boat, complete with

Keeper winding a paddle at Krostkowo lock

camping gear. It had two lovely brightly coloured sails and oars to row it too. The crew waved and we both took photos of each other, then they carried on rowing. A flight of cranes passed over us, one poor thing had a spindly leg dangling as it flew which it must have broken - no RSCPA Animal Hospital here! Bill came on VHF to tell us that a man with a horse and cart had tried desperately to tell him something. When we passed him and his colleague and a child, he talked very earnestly to us but we hadn’t a clue about what he was saying. He didn’t believe our “Nie rozumiem’s” and kept talking! They had a horse and cart and

Beautiful bright sails on a small rowing boat

appeared to be reed cutting. Two fields further on another old man was turning hay using a horse drawn appliance that would, most likely, have been used when the canal was opened two hundred years earlier. We could see black clouds in the distance over Ujscie and rain leaking from it. We hoped it would be gone before we got there. No such luck. It was torrential. At least we had time to get the gear packed away and waterproofs on (for what good that did!) before it poured down. Bill had

Crane with a busted leg.

overshot the mooring place we’d been aiming for at KP 102, where we’d moored before, easily done in the low visibility in the heavy rainstorm. It was 4.30 p.m. as Mike slung off a plank into the reeds and took a bow rope around a beaver-chewed tree. Bill turned round and came back to moor alongside. The rain stopped as soon as we finished tying up and the sun came out again. Later, when Mike went out to turn off the inverter, the river was covered in thick mist, but the stars were still visible.    

At times we really wished we knew what they were saying!