Friday 27th May 2005 Elblag to jnc Nogat/Jagielloński canal.

Typical shop in Elblag - Wikimedia photo by Albertyanks

15.5º C overnight – getting warmer. Sunny with hazy clouds. Mike was up first at 7.30 a.m. and we all went into town on foot. Bill took his bike to carry some beer. First we went in the little sklep by the mooring and bought bread and tomatoes. Bill cycled a bit further down the street to get some beer in cans then took all the heavy stuff back to the boat. We walked on across the footbridge into the town, most off which was flattened by the Ruskies at the end of WWII because the Nazis built U-boats there. Most of the buildings are post-war “jerry”-built! We went to the Post Office and sent off two bags containing four films to be developed and five postcards in envelopes. Calculating how much the postage costs is a nightmare. From the tariffs we’d reckoned 2,80 Zł each for the postcards and 3,90 Zł each for the films – but she charged us 16,40 Zł - cheaper than what we thought the rate was. Give up. We went in the internet café, checked e-mails (got none), had printouts of the WWT phone bill and wrote down details from the bank statements as there hadn’t been many transactions. Mike didn’t notice that Bill had come in and was sitting behind us on the far

E7 road bridge in Elblag - Wikimedis photo by Aktron

side of the room – he went to look for him while I did a bit of surfing. He got the guy from the Tourist Info Office looking for him when he was already in the café! Paid 5 Zl for the hour plus and 1 Zł (there were 6 Zł  to the pound) for the two printouts. Next stop a top-up for the ‘phone, which will expire next week when the two months from when we bought it are up. We found the Idea shop. What a setup. A smart young man stood at a small reception desk. He spoke a little English, so he told us to go to the cash desk (a window at the back of the room) and he would tell the young lady what we wanted. We bought a top-up, valid for a month, for 25 Zł and took it back to him and he charged our ‘phone with it for us as we couldn’t understand the Polish instructions. I asked if he could change the language to English, he tried but couldn’t. There were lots of people in the shop, sitting on chairs waiting for someone who was at a desk behind screens. The only ‘phones on display were behind locked glass panels on the one wall. We went back to the other end of the main street to a small supermarket

Tram in Elblag - Wikimedia photo by Francuz-el

and bought a few more groceries: milk, coffee, eggs, butter, coffee-creamer, cheese, Mike asked for some boiled ham this time, lettuce and a treat - a packet of chocolate coated biscuits and a bottle of Fanta orangeade!  Loaded up the rucksacks as armed guards (Polish version of Securicor) were collecting or delivering cash. Walked back to the boats through a park (where the U-boats dry docks were?). I unloaded the groceries. Bill had got some decaff coffee that he doesn’t drink anymore. I said it was a pity he didn’t drink tea any more either (he drinks beer or bottled water) as I could do him a swop. He said he really could do with some Bonjella as he had a sore gum, which looked like an abcess. I thought we had some, but after a fruitless search the only thing I could think of to ease the pain of a gumboil was Veganin tablets. He said he’d try nitric acid if it took the pain away! I started making a salad for lunch as we cruised on to the yacht club to get some drinking water. They knew we were coming as the purple hosepipe was out along the wooden landing stage and there were no other boats moored there, which made life easier. Two teenage girls were sitting on the grass at the end of the landing, so I asked them if we could have some water. They giggled and said tak (yes) and one of them went off to the tap to turn it on for me. Bill brought Rosy alongside and he topped up too. The hydrofoil went past and instead of coming up the canal at a slow cruising pace, the steerer kept bringing it up on to the plane and then slowing off, which was sending big waves up the cut. Prat, he knew what he was doing. It was 2 p.m. before we finished filling up and set off again, waving bye, bye to the few locals who were by the basin. We turned left into the Jagielloński canal, if we’d taken the route straight on it goes out on to the lagoon – the way the hydrofoil goes to Kaliningrad in Russia. It was getting hotter. For the first time this year I made some ice cubes and we had cold drinks instead of tea. At 3 p.m. a small yacht went past heading for Elblag, followed by a lone paddler. Just before we got to the junction with the Nogat, the wind picked up and turned over the front section of our big blue sun canopy. Mike had to put it on the front deck and sort its bent legs out later. It was 3.30 p.m. as we arrived at the junction, where we had moored in the pouring rain on the 17^th, the weather couldn’t have been more extreme (apart

Brewery in Elblag - Wikimedia photo by  Michiel1972

from a blizzard!) We moored in front of Rosy on the piling. Crowds of local kids wearing knickers and vests (no posh cossies here) were swimming in the canal (which was a murky shade of khaki) or the river by the bridge. A woman was washing clothes in the cut at a set of steps by the house on the opposite bank. The kids decided because we didn’t speak Polish we must be German and kept saying Guten tag! Dumpkofs! Mike went back to taking the 35mm camera apart. I did the callback phone bill calculations. Our rate per minute had gone up because we’re in Poland. It was 38$c (20p) a minute in Germany, now it’s 42$c (22p) a minute (fixed ‘phone rate). Someone swimming in the cut knocked on our boat hull and said hello in English. It was an Irishman! Originally from near Athlone, he was an English teacher and had been living in Elblag for twelve years, running his own private English school (called Speak Easy) he was married to a Polish lady and they had a young daughter. He said he was very happy to live here, Poland is a wonderful country. He warned us to be careful as this was a very poor area, as there is no form of social security some people would steal anything to sell it that wasn’t nailed down. He told Bill to keep a close eye on Fanny, they’d steal the dog and sell it to the local Chinese restaurant! Remind me never to try Chinese food in Poland. We chatted for about twenty minutes while he trod water – he must be a good swimmer. This was the first time he’d been to his favourite swimming place this year and had been astounded to find us moored there. I did egg and chips for dinner (with all the chatting I’d forgotten to defrost any meat from the freezer!). Watched “Corrie” and the weather. Another fine day tomorrow. Bill came round to check on the route on his maps for where we were going over the next few days. I had the PC on again, still three days behind with the log entries. Will I ever catch up? Mike carried on working on the 35mm camera and lost a tiny, tiny screw which had flicked out of the container he was using to keep them in and gone into hiding. He searched the floor, the cushions, his clothing and still couldn’t find it. He asked Bill if he had any old clocks he could steal a tiny screw from. Bill told him that Rosy was a modern boat and there were no clockwork items on board! And this is a bloke with a collection of hurricane lamps in his engine room?! 

Thursday 26th May 2005 Below lift 3 Oleśnica to Elblag.

11º C Sunny and warm. Up at 7.00 a.m. Did a few chores while Bill glued the rubber gasket on the lid for his weed hatch (the only person we know who does that!). Set off at 9.00 a.m. following Rosy to lift 4, Jelenie, arriving at 9.30 a.m. Rosy went into the trolley to go down

first. When the other side came up we got on that. Meanwhile Mike had a good look at the bearings on the wheel carrying the cable. He said the bearing was on the wrong way round for the direction of thrust. Mention of clocks and monkeys came round again (After the end of WWII an eminent British politician was quoted as saying “Handing over former German industry to the Polish – when the Germans left Prussia, retreating to west of the Oder and it became Polish - is like giving a wristwatch to a chimpanzee” – very insulting but Mike is beginning to believe there is some truth in what he said). We had to wait on the trolley as there was something coming

uphill. Two small Polish yachts were in the upcoming trolley as we went down. More video. It was ten past ten when we reached the bottom. Mike changed the film in the 35mm camera and had problems with it – the shutter had jammed. He went inside to try to fix it and I steered down the canal to lift 5, Całuny Nowe, the last lift. We passed the newest trip boat of the fleet, called Ostroda, the guide book boasts it even has air conditioning! I pressed the buzzer to call Mike and the engine alarm went off. Mike went to check it out, either the alternator was packing up or the oil pressure was falling – but he could find nothing wrong.

Photo from Wikimedia by Lestath

Could be a momentary intermittent fault. Bill called on VHF to say he was setting off down lift 5 and there was a tripper coming up and another one waiting at the bottom. We went down the last slope with Kormoran coming up. Mike filmed the steep slope from the stern of the boat as we came down. We left the bottom at 10.50 a.m. passing a swim-suited Polish couple on a tiny sailboat heading for the lifts. The engine alarm kept sounding off and Mike had come to the conclusion that mending the camera was not going to be easy, there were hidden fasteners to find. The alarm stopped going off on its own! There were lots of weeds and twigs and muck in the Elblaski canal between the lifts and below them too.  The goat willow along the banks leading to the big nature reserve around lake Druzno was shedding fluff again – it looked like snow blown by the wind. Bill called on VHF to say that some fishermen had a net out across the canal at the end of a long straight and he’d had to get them to move it to let Rosy through. He told them we were coming. There was no net out when we got there. It was ten minutes before midday when we reached the beginning of the lake. It was getting weedier, full of birds – swans, black-headed gulls, pochard and ferruginus ducks, plus coots and mallard, grebe and heron. We passed an anchored small open boat with three men with cameras on board. They waved and said hello. At midday we noticed Rosy drifting into the lilypads and thought Bill’s gone to get his lunch, when he came on the radio to say he’d got something ‘orrible on his prop. Weed hatch up and he proceeded to extract metres and metres of blue fishing net from around the blades. We hovered in the channel in case he needed assistance. We ate lunch following Rosy out of Druzno on to the canal. Common terns were diving for fish and black terns were

Elblag - Wikimedia photo by Janusz J

skimming over the weeds catching insects. Where the lake narrowed there were big groups of over forty swans on either side of us, all close together and heads down dredging something they were all particular to from the bottom of the lake. We passed another small sailboat heading across the lake towards the lifts. At the end of the lake there were lots of great crested grebe. A mink swam past then dived out of sight, right opposite some fishermen, as we entered the canal. A tiny day boat went past with two kids on the bows, several adults stood at the back and more inside the little cabin It was so far down at the bows we were surprised that the outboard leg reached the water! They were all having a great time. Two two-man canoes went past – another family having a nice day out. As we approached the outlying houses and factories of Elblag there were more and more people on the banks (which lead us to suspect that they were on holiday today) they were fishing or sunbathing, and most of them were smoking. It was ten past two when we tied up on the town quay. Loads of people were promenading up and down or sitting on the wall at the back of the quay. Mike and Bill went off on foot to do a bit of reconnoitring. The Post Office was closed (it was a bank holiday) so they went to find people to talk to about the

Elblag - Wikimedia photo by Janusz J

availability of diesel. I wrote out the postcards we’d bought from the stall by the top lift. We moved the boats over to the other side of the canal by a canoe hire place, with Rosy on the inside (sitting on the bottom) and us on the outside. The proprietor had told them where they could get diesel and had offered to take them to the garage in his van. They made two trips with as many cans as they could muster. We had 268 litres at 3.54 Zł to top up our tank and Bill had about the same. They both gave the guy 25 Zł, he said no, he didn’t want paying, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer and so Mike stuffed the 50 Zł in his ash tray! They were back at 6.40 p.m. and started siphoning the diesel into our tank (Bill had the first load). Later Mike and Bill went for a couple of well-earned jars on the ship moored next to the town quay.

Sorry for the lack of photos, first two were taken with our ancient 35mm camera (and I've posted them before!) before it broke, things will improve soon when we enter the digital age!!

Wednesday 25th May 2005 North of Miłomłyn to below lift 3 Oleśnica.

CLICK HERE for a map of today's route through the lakes and down the lifts

A cooler 4.6º C overnight. Sunny warm day. Set off at 8 a.m. with the pins and did some washing before we arrived at the lifts. I sat outside with my coffee at 9.35 a.m. half way up

Ruda Woda lake. I believe we saw the same male marsh harrier again just south of Małdyty, that was here last time we came through, hunting low over the reedbeds at the top end of Sambrod lake. Swallows were nesting under the road bridge at Małdyty. Lunch on the move. As we went into the narrow channel we passed a tripper going in the opposite direction. Through the cutting at the top of the lifts and we arrived at the top at 1.00 p.m. The next tripper, Kormoran, was loading up at the staging. We tied to the low rails along the concrete edging before the trip boat landing, noting all the green paint and the battered wooden fendering just above waterline, the notice which said no winding, and the green paint along the waterline on the tripper’s bows. Hmm. Bill and I went to look at the maps and postcards on offer at the stall by the top lift. I bought a few more cards and Bill paid for two guide books in English (he’d missed the ones in English when he bought the previous ones). I had a good look through

the maps they’d got on display and found one of the Elblag canal with the all the lakes down to Ostroda and Iława, plus a map of the Nogat and the Szkarpawa as far as Gdansk and Malbork. The maps were only 15 Złotys each (about £2.40). I also had a look at all the souvenir gifts made from amber and bought a tiny little brown frog (16 Zł) as a present for a friend. The museum which was supposed to be open from ten until four was closed. Tripboats came up and went down. We waited for a gap. At 1.45 p.m. all went quiet so we got on the first trolley and paid 28,40 Złotys to the man in the overalls who came from the (inaccessible on foot) far side of the canal. I did some videoing as we went down the slope on lift 1, Buczyniec. A short uphill run, then down the long steep slope. It was more hair-raising going downhill than uphill, but this time nothing fell off shelves. Arrived at the bottom of the first lift at ten past two. Bill came on the radio to say, “Another perishing trip boat has slipped in between us!” (Only he wasn’t quite so polite)  He was not amused. Down the short canal section to lift 2, Kąty, and went straight into an empty trolley, set out the ropes and banged on the gong to let the spotter know we were ready – being at the top of the long slope he was less than a hundred metres away. Mike measured the angle of slope, surprisingly it was only 5º. We were soon at

the bottom. It was 2.45 p.m. Bill came on the radio to say he’d had a good start, his ropes had jammed and he’d had to cut them and he’d broken a boat shaft. The trip boat following us was at the top of lift two as we left the bottom, so we hovered and waited for him to pass us. Alongside the canal was a farmhouse. A little girl shrieked when she saw the boat and ran for the fence to come and wave and shout hello. Her mother got up from sunbathing and waved too. On their barn there were two wheels on poles and two pairs of nesting white storks. I filmed them for posterity! Made a cuppa while we waited for trip boat Pinguin to go past. A smaller trip boat was coming uphill, we passed it on a bend. He hooted and I think was surprised to get a loud hoot back! The passengers were all very cheery and waving. We dropped on to the trolley at lift 3, Oleśnica, that the tripper had just left and ran up the slow short slope, then down the bumpy longer downhill slope to the bottom. As Bill was coming down 3 he called to ask if we were going to stay on the pound below it again. Mike was quite happy to keep going, but when he looked at the time it was ten to four already. We made for the bank and were quite surprised to get almost right next to the towpath, which had two tracks of concrete for vehicles to drive on. It was 4 p.m. when we tied up and half an hour later Rosy came and tied alongside. Easy access for Bill's dog Fanny – for once there was no plank! Bill told us that his ropes had got jammed under the round plates he has on the top of the dollies on his counter. They weren’t tied, he said it was his own fault for not keeping a closer eye on which way the turn was around the bollard. The pole that broke was his nicely painted short boat shaft, he pushed on it and it snapped! It must have been rotten. I read the first part of the English version guide to the Elblag canals and lifts and asked myself is this really in English! There were lots of errors in it too, locks missing from the text and dates obviously wrong. Ah well, they sell them mainly to tourists, not canal anoraks like us!

Thursday 19th May 2005 Below lift 3, Oleśnica to S of Małdyty

1.4º C Cold overnight, but sunny during the day. At 8.00 a.m. I walked up the slope with both stills cameras and the video camera. I walked up the bank and crossed the rail tracks to stand halfway up the slope on lift number 3, Oleśnica (otherwise known as Schönfeld) with a rise of 24.5m (the biggest lift of the five) over a slope of 350m. Mike gave Bill a hand. This time Bill wanted to try putting the ropes on by himself, with Mike doing nothing, to see if he could do it OK on his

own. They donged the gong. No signs of life. I took photos of the mill stream which ran over two small waterfalls. Mike shouted me to go up to the top and find out what was happening as there was no one at the “spotter’s shed” (the cabin on the crest of the slope where an assistant stands and gives directions to the winchman in the winding gear room next to the waterwheel - all good eco stuff this!) There was a small farmhouse and yard next to the winding gear and a group of

five men (and three small dogs) were stood around talking. Between me and them was a pen with two big noisy dogs. I shouted good morning to them and was ignored, so I shouted again and still got no answer, so I spoke to the dogs who quietened down a bit. I tried again, asking if there was anyone to work the lift, and one of the men said in English “ten o’clock” Oh! OK. We’ll hang about until then. Fine. I went back down the slope again, back to the boat. I told

Mike and Bill of our chauvinist farm worker/canal employees and went inside to make some tea. It was just 9 a.m. Around 9.30 a.m. a lady came half way down the slope to say they were ready, clang the bell when we were ready. Bill shouted us, so I grabbed the cameras and set off up the slope again, while Mike went to ride up the hill on Rosy with Bill. The video was playing up and wouldn’t zoom – Mike said tap it, I did and it worked. I took more photos as we 

worked the two boats up the slope. There were two lady spotters in the hut at the top. Neither one spoke any English, but we had a conversation anyway. The view from the top was splendid with Elblag way down in the misty distance. Fruit trees in bloom alongside the tracks made a good backdrop for the photos. I trekked back up the hill for the third time and said thanks to the ladies as I passed them. No signs of any of the men from this morning. I handed Bill

his camera back as we set off again along the next 2 kms long canal section. It was 10.30 a.m. The canal was narrower and wound between lovely little undulating low hills, into a cutting and diving under a road bridge covered with brand new navigation signs – width markers and a yellow diamond – how silly, where else could you go? We followed Rosy. Bill put the boat in the cradle, while we moored next to a steep sloping bank below lift number two, Kąty

(in German Kanthen) a rise of 18m over a 450m slope. The spotter this time was a pleasant older man who had two dogs with him. I took photos and video of the two boats. Mike wanted a zoom shot of the bows coming up and over the crest and I hadn’t got the long lens, so he climbed on to the walkway and dropped it down to me as the boats were going up the slope. (They'd never let you get so close to working gear like that in Britain! I had to step over knee

high moving cables!) I took shots from the bank and from the landing. The old chap said I could go in the winding gear room and take photos if I wanted. I shouted to Mike to bring the camera bag for the flash, etc, and join me as I dashed off down the steps (the bank alongside was one big carpet of cowslips) to look inside the room which housed the winding gear, big cable drums and the enormous waterwheel which powered it all. The

operator obviously took great pride in his job and was very pleased to show me the gear working. First he set the wheel revolving, then he swung two huge levers and control wheels to engage power from the wheel to move the cables which pull the trollies up and down the slope. Mike and Bill had only just tied up when I went back up the steps. It was midday when we started away from lift two. A trip boat was coming up the slope behind us. Ten minutes later it overtook Rosy and we carried on to the bottom of lift one and tied in the side opposite to the trolley, which was waiting to go up. The tripper went in and within seconds was banging the gong to haul away up the slope. Lift number 1, Buczyniec (Buchwalde), had a lift of 21.5m over a slope of 550m. This time Bill went up on his own and I rode on board Temujin for the first time since the bottom one, lift five. I took photos and video from the boat. Another tripper was coming down in the other cradle as we went up, and yet another was waiting for the cradle we were in when we got to the top. Suddenly there were people everywhere and cameras! We tied to the

tripper’s landing stage at 1.30 p.m. We’d risen from sea level by 99.45m on the five water powered lifts. An elderly Polish man came to talk to us in English. Mike went off with our camera to take photos of Rosy coming up the last lift. He returned just in time as yet another trip boat came through the bridge beyond the landing. We untied and moved on as the trip boat went to the landing to wait for Rosy to vacate the trolley. Bill wanted a booklet and some postcards, so we waited under the bridge (which had a single wooden clapper stopgate with paddle gear just like the gear on the German Finow canal, not surprising as the Prussians built it all). We asked Bill to get us a booklet and some postcards too. We moved off again just after 2.00 p.m. along a narrow, winding, reed-edged canal. The speed limit was 6 kph but we needed to do 7 kph for generating as I was doing some washing, luckily the water was deep so we made no wash. Changed the washing loads over at 3.30 p.m. as we sped off down Jezioro (lake) Sambrod, the first lake in the chain of western Mazurian lakes. There were lots of little wooden

bungalows atop a low bank along the left hand bank, each had its own wooden sentry box - an outside privvy. One ancient wooden two storey house deserved a photo, so I took one. Under a railway bridge into the next lake, it was wide and only 2m deep and there was cold north wind blowing. Threading through some islands by the village of Małdyty, a male marsh harrier hunted low down, close alongside the boat. A long train of bright blue and yellow coaches drew into the station in the town right by the lake. A lovely old house stood guard at the entrance to the next canal section, it windows were boarded up. An old lady wearing a flowery pinny and cotton trousers was standing fishing by the next bridge. We paused under the next bridge and Mike disconnected the drive as the washing had finished. It was 4.30 p.m. We went on as far as the end of the canal section to where it lead to a long wide lake called Ruda Woda – Red Water – and moored opposite a waterways house where there was another old speedboat with tailfins moored. It

was 4.45 p.m. as we tied to some tall old beech trees, a beautiful quiet mooring. 

Wednesday 18th May 2005 jnc Kanal Jagielloński to below lift 3, Oleśnica.

Click here for a Google map of today's route

2º C overnight. A beautiful sunny day – how did the TV weather forecast get it so wrong, were they a day out? We left at 8.00 a.m. The breeze was chilly and there was a slight flow on the canal, the same way as we were going - towards Elblag. More black terns were catching flies. The reedy banks were full of loud warblers. The dykes were some 20m back from the canal and covered with stunted goat willow. We could see tall blocks of flats and factory chimneys in the distance. We passed a fishing party, four young men with two cars, a rowing boat and a

speedboat, plus a tent. They looked too gob-smacked to acknowledge our greetings. In front of them, were two wooden posts in the canal bed with red rags fluttering from them. We slowed down and crawled past in case they marked nets we couldn’t see. In Elblag the banks were lined with factories – then we spotted a boat harbour and did a quick right turn to go and search for water. An old chap was working on a yacht. He spoke no

English but we managed to ask for water which he went off to organise while we tied up – well the front half anyway – to a long wooden landing stage, part of which was occupied by small yachts. A purple hosepipe supplied the necessary and we both filled up. A large older bloke arrived and came to chat. He also spoke no English, but he brought his digital camera with him and picked on me to photograph. A younger guy with a long haired German shepherd dog at his heels came to speak about mooring. We said we only wanted water as we were pushing on to

Ostroda. They didn’t want any money for the water, which was very nice of them. As we turned back on to the main canal we spotted another boat yard on the far side – no signs of boating life at all for ages and now we were spoiled for choice! On the left bank we passed a very large factory with Alstom in large letters on its roof. Two very large propellors stood on the grass between the factory and the canal bank as decoration. On the right bank there was a police station

with two police boats moored in an arm (which looked like former GDR boats). Four very large trip boats were moored by a footbridge across the canal.  Later we realised that these boats did not continue any further in the same direction we were going but probably went down the other canal (Szkarpawa) and out into the big lagoon. Beyond the bridge there was a nice quay for mooring by a tall church tower.  Just before a railway bridge there was a junction, we took the left turn and went under the bridge – looking closely at the map later

the right turn was called Fiszewka. A bit further on we were faced with another junction and turned left again – on our right was another un-navigable canal called Kanal Tjna. There were lots of fishermen on the banks as we left Elblag behind. The first lake we came to was just a wide area off to our right covered with weed and occupied by swans, geese and seagulls. The first big lake was called Druzno and was wide, edged with lily pads and reeds. As I started

making lunch Mike called me to look at a big bird of prey. It was all dark brown with just a

whitish top of its head and neck. The only thing like it in my field guide book was an Imperial eagle. It was flying low over the reeds, dived down to catch something, then it took off to land out of sight in a tree. The canal leaving the lake was bordered on the left bank by a low dyke backed with wide empty meadows and the right bank was lined with goat willow trees, which were teeming with fluffy seeds. I photographed the first trip boat coming towards us. A modest size, 25m long by about 3.3m wide, the passengers all waved as we passed by them quite closely as the navigation was narrow. At 1.30 p.m. we arrived at the first boat lift,

number five Całuny Nowe (in German Neu Kußfeld), a 13m lift spread over a slope of 450m. We went up first while Bill waited in the narrows by the winding gear. It was quite an experience. All that was visible of the right hand trolley was two sets of wooden walkways with handrails. There was a shed bythe space where the other, descending trolley came to rest on the left side of the cut, but there was no one around. There was another hut on the crest of the slope, so Mike went a walk to find someone. The guy he found said OK he would be ready in a couple of minutes. We took the boat into the trolley and strung two ropes out from either side of the bows and the same from the stern to keep the boat in the centre of the flat bed when the water disappeared. We’d seen pictures of the trolley out of the water with trip boats in it, so we knew it was flat. There was a gong (Really!) on the left hand walkway to beat when we were ready to go. As the cables pulled the trolley up the bank the boat settled on to the timbers which ran horizontally across the bed of the trolley, sloping metal girders supported the wooden walkways and their handrails on either side of the boat. It was faster that we’d

imagined and in no time we were at the top of the 450m slope and running down the much shorter slope into the pound between lifts five and four. I moored the boat by the winding gear house, while Mike went off back down the slope on foot to give Bill a hand to come up with Rosy. He’d left me with all the Polish change we’d got and instructions to pay for the two boats. I put fenders down and tied rather precariously to a short section of wooden fendering with the bows pointing to the middle of the cut. Lots of books had fallen off the top of the bookcase, so I stacked them a bit more neatly on the floor and removed those that were left, placing those that could fall off down on the floor. Absent-mindedly, I collected the change off the roof and dropped it into my jeans pocket, completely forgetting they were a very old pair with a hole in the right hand pocket (normally I never put things in my jeans pockets) – the change went plink, plink, plink on the gunwale and bounced into the canal. Wonderful. Too deep to reach the bottom and, I found when I checked the depth with a short shaft,

the bottom was covered with rocks anyway so I had no chance of recovering the 15 Złotys I’d just lost. As Rosy came up to the top of the slope I went to pay the man with 30 Złotys in notes, securely in my other pocket. The winchman was sitting on a bench on canal level, so I asked if I had to pay him, he said “tak” (yes) and indicated I should follow him and went off down a long flight of wooden stairs down the bank to the winch house. No

English again and I had a job to understand – all five lifts were to be paid for at the same price as the locks, 5,68 each, making a total of 28,40 Złotys (£4.50) for each boat. He had no change – his cashbox was empty. Bill arrived – he wanted his own ticket as a keepsake – and he’d only got a 50 Złoty note. The man gave Bill my twenty, so we ended up paying 30 Złotys each. (A cunning way of getting a tip and they all do it, or try to!) As we set off to the next lift, I had Bill’s

camera plus our 35mm and got off to walk the slope on the next one, lift number four Jelenie (Hirshfeld in German) a 22.5m lift on a slope of 510m, taking photos of the two boats. There was no path on the side we were on, so Mike and I trudged up the corn field, Mike went off through the undergrowth to get to Rosy and I walked on until I got to the rail tracks. Mike went up on Rosy to help Bill, then the two of them walked back down the slope and brought Temujin up. Back on board the boat, we went on along the canal to lift number three, Oleśnica. There were woods on our left and fields of yellow colza on our right. We moored in the gap at the side of the big cable drums, while Bill got Rosy settled on the trolley. Mike went to help as before. They donged the gong and waited. No one appeared, it was 5.30 p.m. work must have stopped for the day. Bill reversed Rosy to the winding gear and we dropped ropes on the bollards by the cable drums and a bit of metal sticking up out of the bank. Bill moored Rosy in the gap with his bows on the winding gear island and his stern in the narrows. It was 5.45 p.m. by the

time we’d tied up. I cooked a stir-fry for dinner. Mike lit the coal fire as it started getting chilly and when we went to bed at midnight it was still alight.