The Journey -
Rosy goes to Germany

And so to Germany.  The Rutenbrock Canal is quite short, and it didn't take us long to cruise along it.  At the far end we locked through to the River Ems.  The actual lock cut looked extremely interesting, with some sort of boaty museum there.  The Ems itself is so heavily canalised that it is usually considered to be part of the Dortmund-Ems Canal.  Suitable moorings are few and far between, and the traffic was, in the main, restricted to commercial vessels.  We had a not very comfortable mooring just above Varloh Sluis.  The locks have been given a greater capacity by building a larger lock alongside the old one.  At Varloh the old one seems to be very little used, so we moored on its empty 'Sports Boat' mooring.  This was at 1815 hrs, after 9.5 hours of cruising for the day.  We were prepared for discussions with officialdom, by enquiring after suitable alternative moorings.

In fact, the nearest ones that we knew about were 2.5 hours further on, at Lingen, where there are some very pleasant off-line moorings - indeed, that is where we moored the next day.

The day after was another long plonk along the Dortmund Ems Canal, with some quite long (up to an hour) delays at several of the locks - commercial traffic takes priority.  Eventually we reached the junction with the great Mittleland Kanal, and turned left - and eastwards - along it.  After 4 km there is a basin in the right hand side, with an arm leading off it running back parallel to the main line.

The next day we found a chandlers near the junction of the Dortmund Ems and the Mittleland Kanals where we bought some maps.  I don't know of any detailed maps of the German waterways system that are in English.  I bought the four spiral bound books of Sportschifffahrtskarten Binnen (SportsBoatJourneyMap Inland) published by Nautische Veroffentlichung Verlagsgesellschaft - a hiccup being that the western end of the Mittleland Kanal (where we were) isn't shown.  The mapping starts at Hanover.  The maps are accompanied by good details about locks, bridges and mooring, and are enhanced by some very attractive sketches of some of the sights to be seen.

In addition we had Barry Sheffield's book 'Inland Waterways of Germany' published by Imray Laurie Norrie and Wilson.  This latter gives rough maps, but a detailed listing of locks, bridges and moorings.  This book, and the German map books, were fine EXCEPT that sport boating is a rapidly growing activity in Germany, so that waterside facilities are in a rapid state of change.

There is not much to say about the Mittleland Kanal.  It is pretty straight and broad, and carries a lot of traffic.  We encountered some heavy rain in places.  We successfully negotiated the two locks one of 14.7m and one of 9m.  We had to wait for the second one, but knew it was ready for us when the tannoy boomed out in perfect English "Come on in, boys!".  I also had a frightening experience.

By and large we were the slowest boats on the canal, hence our skills at overtaking barges were not tested.  Being overtaken was something that we were used to.  On this particular occasion it was very busy.  A stream of barges was coming towards us, the empty ones overtaking the laden ones, and we were in the midst of a fair number going our way.  Hence when there was a barge behind me, I assumed that he would wait until there was a gap in the on-coming traffic.  Wrong!!  I got a toot from him.  The problem was that I couldn't shift over too far to the right because when a barge passes by the water level at its mid-ships will fall by as much as half a metre - dumping me on the bottom, perhaps.  I shifted over as far as I dared, and he came by with about a metre or two between us.  This was just about OK until his stern end came along, when two effects came into play.  Firstly, his prop pulled in so much water that I was drawn in towards him.  The second was that his stern wave picked Rosy up and swept us along at about one and a half times our normal speed - and there we were stuck, being inexorably drawn in towards his stern end.  I was fighting to keep Rosy going straight, as I didn't fancy being turned broadside on to our direction of travel.  I gave the engine a sudden (and high) burst of full astern to slow us down enough to get off his wave, but this lost us all steering so our bows clumped his stern as he finally went by.  Sir came out of his wheelhouse and peered over the side to see what the clump was.  I felt it best to ignore him!  Five minutes later he pulled into a wharf and moored!!  Motorway madness or what??

We also did a side trip by car to visit Menden, a little town near Iserlohn, near Dortmund.  Some 40 years ago, this was my first posting after two and a half years of training when I first joined the army.  The massive barracks at Menden housed my unit (5 OFP (Ordnance Field Park)) and 50 Missile Regiment RA which was the UK's field nuclear strike force - serious stuff!!  I lived there for 17 months, and met my wife to be (she who became my ex-wife) there.  I couldn't find the barracks, so called in at a police station.  "The barracks are no longer there," they said, as they photocopied a road map for me.  We eventually found the barracks.  They ARE there, but what a difference.  I remembered them as massive, gaunt, grey stone/concrete buildings.  Most are now painted in pastel shades, and the areas between them flaunt flower beds and greenery.  The main gate has been removed.  Most of the old office buildings and barrack blocks are now apartments.  The Guard Room has window boxes outside it, as does the Regimental Headquarters.  Gun sheds that once housed 8-inch howitzers (capable of firing nuclear shells) are now commercial warehouses.  My boss's office is a pizza restaurant, and my office is the washing up area of the pizza kitchen.  A wonderful example of swords into plough-shares.

We passed through Minden a bit too quickly - the British Army fought an engagement there in days gone by, still remembered by the relevant regiments, who wear a Minden rose on their caps on the anniversary of the battle.

Volkswagen

After another 70 km we cruised past the massive Wolfsburg Volkswagen Factory.  It is extremely impressive.

(The following bits about VW and its founding are NOT definitive.  They are based on rumour and bar gossip that I have heard, and a BBC radio programme that I heard whilst struggling to keep Rosy on a steady course.)

The factory is brick built, it is nearly 2 km long, with an office block at the west end, and a 4-chimney power plant at the east end.  It was built before WW2.  To the east of the power plant there is a modern visitor centre and, I think, some sort of sports hall.  At the outbreak of war, production was just starting, but resources were switched to other military vehicle production plants, and the factory only produced about 100 VWs during the war years.  Hence it wasn't on the Allies hit list, and survived the war pretty much intact.

Towards the end of the war, the Russians removed many of the machine tools, dies etc.  as war booty.  Ooops!!  Sorry!  Reparations.

At the Armistice, the factory fell on the Allied side of the East-West German border, and a young (under 30) REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) Major called Ivan Hurst (I'm not sure of the spelling) was sent to case the joint, which was then being used by the Allies as a vehicle repair workshop.

Hurst realised that the factory had potential.  The Allies needed lots of vehicles in order to aid their role as the civil administration authority in Germany.  He soon had an order list for 50,000 vehicles.  Meanwhile, armed with several cases of whisky and a few thousand ciggies, he tracked down the tools and dies, and persuaded the Russians to return them.  He then got the factory going.  The cars were built and tested, and he collected defect reports to help improve the product.  He introduced Works Councils, and (especially important in post-war Germany) attended to the feeding of the workforce.

He was fortunate in being able (brave enough?) to bend the rules.  So that when the supply of French carburettors dried up he asked the nearby camera factories (which hadn't many orders for cameras) to make them - strictly illegal and anti all patent laws - but it worked.

After a few years, Hurst was de-mobbed from the Army, and went on to other things, leaving the factory in a good state.  He is well remembered by the REME, and also by VW who have, I believe, recently commissioned a biography of him.

But back to the voyage …

Shortly after Wolfsburg we crossed what had been the border between East and West Germany, and then, after 320km completed in 13 calendar days (10 cruising days) we finally arrived at Magdeburg on the river Elbe.  Until last year, boats continuing eastward had to descend to the Elbe, travel downstream a couple or three kilometres, and then ascend up to the continuation of the Mittelland canal to Berlin.  The descent was either by the old Rothensee boat lift, or the newer but much larger lock that can take the much bigger 'European' gauge barges.

(Out of interest, before re-unification, the West German government paid money to the East German government for the upkeep of this crossing and the section of canal between the border and Berlin.  These payments were to facilitate the movement of goods from West Germany to West Berlin, and paralleled similar road and rail agreements). 

All that changed last year, when the long planned aqueduct across the Elbe was opened.  At 918 metres it is thought to be the longest navigable aqueduct in the world.

We visited Magdeburg to fill up our gas bottles (many places in Germany refill gas bottles rather than swapping empty ones for full ones) and to visit the town.  I was particularly interested to see the Dom (Cathedral) as it is said to contain one of the finest exhibitions of sculpture in Germany.  Unfortunately, most of it was hidden away (for cleaning?) including St Maurice - said to be the first European artistic representation of a black person in Europe.  Personally, I find it difficult to believe that it pre-dates all the black Madonnas, and that there are no black people represented in Moorish Spain ( but perhaps that isn't classed as 'European Art') and that there were no black people shown on European church wall paintings (one of the Three Kings is often black) and icons (in orthodox Greece for example) and I'm pretty certain that black people appear on Roman mosaics.  I suspect that it is a 'What did the Romans ever do for us …' scenario. 

Of course, we viewed the new aqueduct over the Elbe.  I walked across it and back and, embarrassingly, Fanny had a dump half way across.  I'm pretty sure that it's likely that she is the first British dog to crap on it - it only opened last year - and even more certain that we will be the first narrow boats across it when we do the East-West route on the way back next year. 

Our visit to Magdeburg was our first experience of 'sight-seeing' in eastern Germany, and started a trend that continued throughout our stay - namely that all the sights to be seen are undergoing repair and/or renovation, and hence are shrouded in plastic sheeting and/or scaffolding and/or they are closed.  The Dom, for example.

Meanwhile, we went down the old Rothensee ship lift and headed down the River Elbe, to go UNDER the aqueduct.  The Elbe is a flowing river, so we sped along at a fair lick.  The channel swaps from side to side, so one has to keep an eye open for the markers on the bank which indicate where to leave one bank, and where to arrive on the other.  Navigation in reduced visibility would be exceedingly tricksy.  The river meanders about its flood plain and, apart from the bird life and the fact that it IS the River Elbe, the voyage was not a particularly gripping experience.

After a record breaking 61 km (thanks to the current) we stopped for the first night at Tangermunde - a lovely town with much of its city walls intact, but many of its older buildings in dire need of love and attention.

The next day it rained.  We don't do boating in the rain if it's avoidable.  We'll carry on cruising if it starts to rain whilst we are cruising, but to set off in the rain … So we stayed in Tangermunde.

Then the weather cleared and we had another record run - 73 km - down to Wittenburg.  This was NOT the Wittenburg where Martin Luther made his protest against indulgences etc - THAT Wittenburg is a few hundred kilometres up-stream.  At THIS Wittenburg, we had to pay for the mooring, but it was in a pleasant spot, and the town has some interesting bits of sculpture.

Then on downstream to Domitz, where we turned right onto the Muritz-Elde-Wasserstrasse.

At this point our 'voyage' became a meander of discovery.  We were entering the area of 'The Mecklenburg Lakes' - a series of interconnected lakes but with lots of dead ends, so that we were often retracing our steps.  At other times we were cruising along 'proper' canals, to get from one lot of lakes to another.  It seems pointless to give a turn by turn account of the next few weeks, so I'll try to pick out some of the highlights.

Keen cinema buffs will already have seen some of what we saw - the early Roman Polanski film 'Knife in Water' was (I'm assured) shot in that area.

The lakes themselves are not, generally, deep - 2 to 10 metres is usual.  Each lake is surrounded by forest, and many villages lie hidden behind a fringe of forest.  This is in contrast to other places, where people want a house WITH a view, but then become part of the view, with, usually, a detrimental effect to the view.  Such is life!  (Being, incidentally, the last words of Ned Kelly the (in)famous Australian outlaw/hero).

The forest comes down to the water's edge, but, between land and lake, there is often a belt of reed beds.  These beds soften the land/water transition, and also help to dissipate the wash of passing boats, and, hence, reduce land erosion.

Some clever zoning has taken place, with some lakes being off-limits to powered craft, and other stretches being made available to water and jet skiers.  There were a great number of canoeists around, some in great flotillas, taking advantage of the many, well organised camping sites.  Open, motorised 'day' boats were also on the camping trails.  We came across one well organised bunch of folk who had a back up truck - they canoed in the morning and cycled in the afternoon, with the people, canoes and bicycles all meeting up in the evenings at a gasthof for a comfy bed and a lot of beer.

Some boats nose into the shore, and moor with a line ashore and an anchor out astern (though it is forbidden, apparently, to tie to a tree).  Others just drop a mud-weight off shore, to swing gently in the breeze.  On several occasions, at lunch time, we just stopped and switched the engines off, and enjoyed the stillness. 

The whole thing was exceedingly peaceful.

To be continued …

[Bill sent a number of photographs along with this episode, which can be seen here.]