Friday 17th - Sunday 19th June 2005 KP215 Lipki-via Gorzów Wielkopolskie-KP45 Warta.

Moorings at Santok, with newly added access planks and ladders

Friday 17th June 2005  KP215 Lipki-via Gorzów Wielkopolskie-KP45 Warta.

14.4º C milder. Overcast hazy clouds, weak spells of sunshine, windy. Bill managed to fall off the end of the plank and stick one leg into the mud halfway up to his knee. His ropes came off and he was away at just after eight. We lifted the stakes, hauled the ropes and plank in and were off downriver again fifteen minutes later. Clouds of small black houseflies were a real pest as we were untying and we swatted a few cleggs (a vicious type of blood-sucking horsefly) as we set off. We overtook Rosy as Mike was finishing off washing the mud

Ferry across the Warta at Notec

off the back deck. Some swans took off from the edge of the river. Mike saw a very rare sight and called me to look. It was a dead swan, floating in the river where the others had just taken off from. At 9.15 a.m. we passed through Santok and said goodbye to the river Notec and hello again to the river Warta. The posts set in the river at Santok now had wooden planks which hooked over the wooden horizontal bars with

Houses at Santok

short vertical ladders attached to the ends of each plank. I took another photo of the beaver damage to the trees at Czechów. Gorzów soon came into view, its distant tower blocks lined up along the crest of the hill looking like a modern day citadel. The cooling towers at Wawrów dominated the skyline above the little town. One had been painted blue with clouds in an attempt to disguise it. Round the last couple of bends and we were at Gorzów. Just after passing under the

Beaver damage to trees at Czechow

new road bridge, Mike turned the bows upstream and entered the channel into the basin where there were new yellow posts to moor to in a relatively quiet hidden corner of the town. The channel was 5m deep, more than twice the depth outside on the Warta. It was 10.45 a.m. As we passed underneath the new bridge again I heard someone shouting, then discovered two teen-aged

High rise blocks of flats at  Gorzow

girls sitting on the girderwork right underneath the town side edge of the bridge. Bill brought Rosy alongside and then he went off on his bike to find an Internet café, as Waterways World and Canal and Riverboat had suddenly taken an interest in his idea to do an article on the first narrowboats to ride the Elblag lifts. I asked him if he was going to the market and saw any lettuces to get us an iceberg (they’d got none,

Cooling towers at  Gorzow

but he found lots of ladies underwear in some huge sizes - the market stalls were nearly all clothes). On his return, he said when he went past the girls under the bridge they wanted him to give them money – I dread to ask what for. Whilst at the Internet café, he’d managed to order a battery for our camera which would cost £14 plus VAT and be delivered free to Glyn’s in the UK. Mike went

Advertising on the sides of the high rise flats Gorzow

across to the Statoil garage by the bridge and bought some petrol at 4.05 Zł a litre (68p), then emptied his cans to go and get some diesel. He came back with two cans containing 54.8 litres at 3,65 Zł (61p) per litre. We set off again at 1.30 p.m. I made some more coleslaw for lunch. The weather was starting to turn grim, it started to drizzle as we set off, but fortunately stopped again soon after. The Polish yacht we’d been

Gorzow town quay and markets

seeing in various places was on the town quay by the markets (brave chap, we wouldn’t leave our boats unattended in a town). We ate lunch travelling at a sedate pace downriver to the place near Dzierzów where we’d stopped at on 21^st April, where there were several big overhanging trees which the beavers had been chewing. It was 3.15 p.m. when we got there. I threw a rope around a dead tree and Mike

Paused at Gorzow in new offline basin

brought the stern alongside the bank, slung a plank off and we put ropes around the trees. Bill brought Rosy alongside and we put poles out at each end to keep us off the sandy bottom. Decided to stay here for the weekend as Mike wanted to watch the motor racing on Sunday. We turned in late at 12.45 a.m. only to get up again at 1 a.m. after hearing strange screeching noises, something scraping

Gorzow town quay and markets - yacht moored by market

down the hull. At first we thought it was an animal. A bit un-nerved by the fact that Mike had seen torchlight when he turned the inverter off just before we went to bed. I got the big spotlight in case it was poachers or animals - that would frighten ‘em! We opened the side doors half expecting to see a large head, with fur and teeth, but there was nothing there. The wind had picked up and the terrestrial TV aerial was blowing along the roof - its aluminium elements were making the noise! Mike

Leaving Gorzow, heading downstream on the Warta

fastened it down and took the mast down as it was trying to rip all the flags off.

Saturday 18th June 2005  KP45 nr Dzierzów Warta.

Day off. 13.3º C overnight. Sunny and warmer, but still very windy. The torchlight Mike saw the previous night must have been fishermen on the far bank, just round the bend downstream of us. We had a lazy morning. Mike went out with the camera to take photos of our mooring place and the trees that were almost chewed

Pushtow heading upriver.

through by beavers. Lunch. Got on with sorting our new digital photos. Stopped to cook tandoori chicken nuggets and chips for dinner. Watched the news and weather before starting again on the photos.

Sunday 19th June 2005  KP45 nr Dzierzów Warta.

10.6º C overnight. Sunny spells, cloudy at times but still windy. Another day off. Had a lazy morning. After

Tug Bobr (named after tributary of R Oder) pushing two loaded pans

Russian orthodox church dome in Gorzow

lunch we ran the engine and did some washing. Mike put our other satellite dish out on top of the bank to get analogue French TV to watch the Formula One Grand Prix from Indianapolis. There was a big row in America about F1. Ralph Schumacher’s car had crashed in practise when a tyre exploded. Most of the cars were also on Michelins, only three teams were on Bridgestone tyres. The race started with only six cars running – the ones on Bridgestones – the other drivers refused to race. Mike retrieved the dish and coax from on top of the river bank before bedtime.

Thursday 16th June 2005 KP 181 Str. Bielice to KP215 Lipki.

Road bridge at Drezdenko

11.0º C overnight. A hazy, cloudy sky first thing. Sunny and warm with a gentle breeze. Mike and I transferred the anchor from the front deck to the engine room. Unhitched from the tree at 8.10 a.m. and followed Rosy downriver, overtaking as we came in sight of Drezdenko. The old chap with yacht was moored stern into the bank. He was wading in the river with his trousers off, washing the hull down to remove the dirty marks around water line. We waved. A bit further downstream, two people on the bank stopped mowing a hay field with scythes to wave too. It was 9.15 a.m. when we arrived at

Moored by the road bridge at Drezdenko

Drezdenko town. Mike winded the boat and stuffed the bows into the bank (the water level was considerably lower than when we were here last time) and I tied to a root and threw the bow line on to the bank, but couldn’t reach the posts which were well set back from the edge. Mike put the plank out off the bows and I went to take a stern line and attach that to another post. The bows were on rocks again and we listed

Moored by the road bridge at Drezdenko

slightly to port. Bill went off downriver to turn Rosy - Mike said he’d gone agricultural boating! He brought Rosy alongside as a German couple on a cruiser went past heading upriver. (It is getting busier). Mike helped Bill get his bike off over our boat, he went to get resupplied and to the post office, so Mike asked him to post a letter for us. He was also going to try and find an Internet café, so Mike asked if he would look on Kodak’s website and see how much their batteries for our

Old German built house in Drezdenko

camera were. Mike went a walk into town to get some bread and veg, while I put the inverter on and the PC to catch up with the log, which had been sidelined the past couple of days. He was back at 10.10 a.m. with tomatoes and two small bloomer loaves (they had no brown bread) and a cabbage, (they had no lettuce, broccoli or cauliflower either - good job we’d got plenty of tinned stuff). He brought back

Polish houses by the road bridge in Drezdenko

some more cans of Tyskie beer and put it in the 12v ice box to keep cool. He went to take photos of the boats from the road bridge, then lay down and snored while I finished off the log, bang up to date. Bill was back at 11.30 a.m. having found a library with free Internet, but hadn’t been able to order a spare battery for our camera. We set off again downriver at 12.10 p.m. As there was no lettuce at the supermarket, I

Polish yacht moored at KP210

made coleslaw for lunch, which we ate sitting under the blue sunshade. We passed a stork’s nest with three or maybe four little half grown storklings! No time to take a picture as we flew on down the river at almost 10 kph. We passed our mooring of the Saturday and Sunday 23^rd & 24^th April at KP 202, the fallen tree and cut off stump were still there, but the reeds were much higher. A day for butcher birds! We saw three or four red-backed shrikes sitting on lookout posts atop trees. There were no birds in the big meadow downstream of the road bridge 157 and lengthsman’s

The Bizon tug going past, heading back downriver with two pans 

house, there were very noisy bridgeworks going on with one man dressed like a deep sea diver cutting concrete with a high speed grinding disc. We kept a lookout for otters, but this time we saw none. The Polish yacht was moored, tucked well into a gap in the bank downstream of KP 210. There was no sign of the man or his dog. We’d expected him to have motored on to Santok. Shortly afterwards we started looking for tree stumps to tie to and suddenly there was nothing but reeds and goat willow. Mike spotted a stunted stump and we turned back upriver to go and tie to it. It was pretty rotten, but held while Mike got the plank off and banged stakes in. Rosy came alongside and Bill attached a bow line to a live tree a bit further upstream than our rotten one. It was 3.50 p.m. by the time we’d finished lashing to the bank. The soil was black and loamy, excellent for growing things but terribly mucky on shoes and carpets. At 4.45 p.m. the Bizon tug came back downriver, pushing two big pans. Amazingly the tree held and didn’t break off! Mike stood on Rosy’s front deck to take photos, waking Bill who’d missed the commercial going past. Chicken saté stirfry for dinner.

Wednesday 15th June 2005 Lock 17 Mikołajewo to KP181 Str. Bielice.

Church at Gulcz

12.8º C overnight. Hazy cloud, sunny and warmer. Set off out of the lock chamber at 8 a.m. said bye to the keeper and his missus, who then refilled the lock for a Polish yacht to descend at nine o’clock. Followed Rosy downriver, passing the little town of Gulcz whose only building visible from the river was the church. The sun was shining on it, so I took a photo of it peaking over the flood dyke. Bill told us on the radio that there were two stork’s nests in the trees, so Mike took pictures of them. Down to lock 18, Rosko, where

Storks nr lock 18 Rosko

a young man worked the lock after taking all the details for the paperwork from Bill. Bill paid, although it was our turn, we would have to pay for the next two. Another young man came to help with the lock and two older men came to watch. Back into the flow of the Notec at 9 a.m. Mike took photos of another stork’s nest. Where we had moored to a fallen tree on the way upriver at KP 157 had completely changed. Bank protection work was under way with the bank cleared of trees and vegetation, wire gabions

Bank protection works at KP157 R Notec

placed and rocks laid up the banks. We saw the crew walking up the bank at 9.30 a.m. back to their motley collection of cranes and tractors and a small tug to push the pans of rocks about. One young man, nonchalantly bringing up the rear, was swinging two spades, one in each hand, as he walked. Bill was already in lock 19, Wrzeszczyna, when we arrived and had paid. We went alongside him and gave him the cash. The keeper said something we didn’t understand and went in the

Yacht Mamuśka

house after closing the gate. Minutes later the yacht arrived and the keeper came out to reopen the gate (the one behind us) and the old Polish man, with a resplendent set of white whiskers and a small yappy poodle, steered his yacht “Mamuśka” around our stern ends and motored all the way down the left hand side of the chamber, almost to the tail gates, bouncing along the wall while he searched for a rope. He’d told us the day before that he was going to Lübeck. Back into the flow at 10.05 a.m. The yacht was speeding off into the distance powered by a noisy

Bizon tug heading upriver 

little outboard motor. A few minutes later we had a great surprise to meet a Bizon pusher tug coming upriver. We said we were glad we weren’t tied to the bank when that came past, the waves from his wash were huge, although we were sure he would have slowed down if we’d been tied up. We had to wait above lock 20, Wieleń, as the yacht was still descending in the chamber. Across the fields to our right we could see the gatehouse to what, many years ago, must have once been an impressive German estate. Once in the lock, Mike spotted

New houses at Wielen

a hose laid out along the bank attached to a standpipe. He asked (in Polish) if it was drinking water and got the answer back in German that, yes, it was drinking water. We filled up and Bill, who had headed for the left hand wall, came back to the right to moor alongside us and fill up too. I stayed on the lockside to turn the (fast filling) tap on and off and move the pipe as the boats descended in the chamber. We said thank you to the keeper before we moved off again at 11.15 a.m. We followed Rosy downstream on the Notec,

Old houses at Wielen

through wide meadows with a gentle flow of 1.5 kph as the river had widened and deepened to around 3m. Under Drawsko rail bridge and then we waited above lock 21, Drawsko, while the lady keeper refilled the lock chamber for us. Bill paid and we dropped down the lock. It was 12.45 p.m. as we left, so I went in to finish making a salad for lunch as we went downriver on the short stretch to the last lock 22, Krzyż. There were crowds of people on the bank at the lock, including an old guy with an amazing motor tricycle. Mike missed the lockside as he was busy taking pictures of the bike! He had to back up and get the

Lady keeper at lock 21 Drawsko

boat next to the edges so I could put a rope around the recessed bollard in the wall. The motorbike looked like it had been a home conversion to a tricycle. It had a square metal top with windows and doors and something inside the back that looked like a large exhaust (for winter warmth Mike thought) and a strange handlebar linkage system of steering, which was attached to one side of the front forks. Mike paid for the last lock in Poland and we left. Around one hundred and seventy

Motor tricycle on the lockside at lock 22 Krzyz

kilometres to Germany, no more locks - all downhill on sloping rivers. We ate our tuna salad as we sped along the narrow, wild, un-canalised Notec. Not long afterwards we winded in the flow and came back against it to moor next to the same old dead tree that we tied to on the way upstream at KP 181. Bill fought the current and brought Rosy alongside and we threw a plank off the back deck into the nettles next to a reed bed covered in brilliant blue banded agrion damselflies. It was 2.20 p.m. I tried the new camera out on

Banded agrion damselfly

close-up, taking pictures of the damselflies, which came out exceptionally well. 

Banded agrion damselfly

Tuesday 14th June 2005 KP 102 above Ujscie to lk 17, Mikołajewo.

Onion domes at Ujscie

Chilly 4.5º C overnight, sunny and warmer, but still had a chilly breeze. Up at seven to move at eight. Mike took the stakes and plank in, while Bill kept Rosy alongside until he was back on board. Then I detached Bill’s ropes and he set off at eight. I released our bow rope from round the chewed tree after Mike had removed a compacted waterlilypad from our water intake, by this time we were ten minutes behind Rosy. We ran with the flow of the Notec, which picked up as the river got narrower, and shallower, as we went into Ujscie. There were a few fishermen along the left hand bank, where the meadow had been mown. Branches had been dropped into the river 

Junction with the R Gwda at Ujscie

but secured with string to stop them floating away. They’d been put there by fishermen to provide sheltered spots to fish in downstream of each branch, it also collected rubbish - leaves and twigs, etc (there is not much domestic rubbish in the rivers here, except for the occasional beer bottle or plastic bottle). As we went into the town, we had revs on to do 6.5 kph and were doing between 9 and 9.5 kph according to the GPS, which meant the 

Lock keeper and inspector at Nowe

Notec had picked up speed from its sedentary 1.5 kph further upstream to a livelier 2.5 to 3 kph down here. The town had an old church with two onion domes and a big glass works (with an old quay for commercial craft stacked up with crates of bottles). As we left the town behind, the river slowed down again as it became deeper and wider. Rosy was waiting above lock 12, Nowe, while the keeper filled it. Bill went in on the left and we went on the right. A uniformed man was taking the details of the boats, while the keeper worked the lock. We dropped 

Boats! Uphill traffic at lock 13 Walkowice

down 1.3m and left at 9.45 a.m. A tree was lying in the river just downstream of the lock. It had been attacked and felled by beavers recently, it still had leaves. Then we had a surprise when Bill called on VHF to say there was a boat coming up in the next lock, 13, Walkowice. When the lock was full and the keeper opened one gate, four cruisers came out! Three German ones and a Dutchman, the latter in a new replica sailing botter, who told us he was off to 

Wooden fish traps

Elblag to ride up the lifts. Bill paid for the three locks (N^o’s 12 to 14) and we were square with paying for locks. We dropped down another 1.4m and followed Rosy downriver. Mike took photos of the cable ferry at Walkowice (operated by the flow of the river, the ferryboat secured on two lines from a 6m high wire stretched across the river). The keeper at lock 14, Romanowo, was refilling the lock. He was very slow at doing the paperwork, taking

Lock 14 Romanowo

names, etc, but very friendly and spoke in German to us. Mike had plenty of time to take photos of the lock, weir and old lock house while he did it and then wound a paddle. The garden surrounding the lock sides was full of beautiful plants and trees, this time we didn’t see the old lady who lives at the lock. At 11.45 a.m. we were on our way again. At lock 15, Lipica, there were three men and a woman at the lock. Bill paid again (all the rest of the locks were 

Wagtail chicks in nest back of bar for  boat ropes

paid for singly on the way up).  The woman did the paperwork and two of the men lifted the bottom end paddles - that was Mike’s fault as he had said in the last lock that he’d never seen them lift two paddles (must have overheard him AND understood English). They also opened two gates, something else they don’t normally do! The chamber is over 9m wide! Had lunch under our blue canopy - it was getting warmer. Through the town of Czarnkow, where some houses were perched on the hill, but most were hidden from

Ciszkowo ferry

view by trees. At the downstream end of town was a big woodworking factory and huge piles of wood chippings, but no commercial quay to service the factory. It was 1.30 p.m. as we arrived at lock 16, Pianówka, where the lock was empty with one bottom end gate open and no one around. A hoot brought a young man out to work the lock. We stooged about in the short lock cut, as there was nowhere to tie up and wait for the lock. A second guy came out as we went into the chamber. I threw my centre rope around a bollard, as the recessed 

Mooring for the night in lock 17 Mikolajewo

bar in the wall Mike had been aiming for contained a bird’s nest with four young wagtail chicks in it. Little grey things, they were keeping their heads down. At first Mike thought they were dead, but on closer inspection he could see little sparkling black eyes. More photos. Two paddles and two gates again. Mike got off and paid the 11,36 Złotys. Fifteen minutes later we were speeding our way down the Notec again. The ferry at Ciszkowo was doing a brisk trade (it is free of charge to road traffic) with tractors pulling double 

Weir at Mikolajewo

trailers carrying big rolls of hay. At 2 p.m. we had started looking for a suitable tree to tie to and found nothing. First we were too close to a noisy road as far as the ferry, then there were no felled trees to attach to, so we continued down to lock 17, Mikołajewo, where a friendly couple worked the lock. Bill gave the lady the boat details and paid for the lock, while the man talked to us in German as he worked the lock. Mike said we weren’t going through the next lock at Rosko today, we would look for a mooring between the two locks. The keeper said it was OK to moor below his lock. Mike went to look. The sloping banks were no good for us. The keeper said he had no boats booked until 9 a.m. next day, so we could stay in the lock overnight if we wanted to. OK by us. Bill moved over on to the shady side in front of us (we’d swopped sides and we were on the left). The keeper and his missus got their bikes out and pushed them across the top end gates - work over, we were their last boats so they were off home! An old lady in pinny and headscarf came to look at the boats from the lockside. She and Mike chatted in German. She’d seen us go upriver, but hadn’t been able to get to the lock in time to talk to us. Mike went for a snore while I finished off the log entries and checked them. I opened a Polish bottle of sweet and sour sauce, added some fried chicken and onions and boiled rice for dinner. Watched the weather forecast on Sky TV, it looked OK. Around midnight torrential rain and a thunderstorm arrived.

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!