Day 5: Ignorance is Bliss

Neuburg to Neustadt (45km)

The rain from last night hadn’t succumbed this morning, if anything it sounded even more aggressive, although this was probably due to the fact that I was imminently about to leave the tent and feel it’s wrath. Once I plucked up the courage to leave the tent, I found that the rain wasn’t as bad as initially feared and quickly packed up. Once in the kayak, the rain didn’t bother me at all, it was still quite warm and the rain acted as a nice coolant. In fact, at this stage, my kayaking technique is so bad that I often splash water on myself anyway, resulting in a constant state of dampness that the rain was simply contributing to. By lunch time the rain had stopped and I was able to enjoy my sandwiches without them going soggy.

Once again I had a few locks to pass through today, 3 in total. I have now attached a long piece of string to the kayak so that I can hold it in place while simultaneously operating the button. This means that I only need to go down the ladder once and has reduced the process to half an hour, I don’t think it is possible to get it any quicker with only one person. At the first lock, I tied the string round the staircase so that I didn’t have to hold it, leaving my other hand free to browse through the day’s football news. Once the lock had completely drained, the string was at maximum tension, meaning that untying the naught was impossible, so I decided to simply cut it with my knife. As I was doing this, I managed to nick my finger with the knife, leaving a small cut. I didn’t take a picture of this, but if you’re really struggling to imagine what this looks like, then just think of my finger, then think of a small cut and simply put the two together.

When I arrived at the second lock, I found it was already full, thus removing the first four steps of the process and reducing the time significantly. Due to the rain, I was finding it a little chilly when I stopped at the locks, so this time saver was well appreciated. With less locks, I was making better progress, passing through Ingolstadt and with the help of a strong current on the final section, arrived in Neustadt in the late afternoon. I had booked a hotel in town which was about 2km from the river. There was a couple on the bank with kayaks, setting up a tent, so I headed over and asked them to keep an eye on my kayak and make sure no one meddled with it. I pulled the kayak onto the bank, unintentionally higher than their tent, took out what I needed for the night and headed off. Neustadt is a lovely little town, it had a very pleasant feel to it and the owner of the hotel was very friendly. I headed to a restaurant nearby for dinner, the outside area was quite busy so I headed inside. It quickly became apparent that everyone outside was just friends of the owner/chef/waitress and that they weren’t really open for food. She did give me the option of the simplified menu, simply “schnitzel or cordon bleu?”, perfect I thought, they were the only two things I’d been ordering anyway. After probably the biggest cordon bleu of all time, I headed back to the hotel and settled in for the night, blissfully unaware of the chaos that was taking place down at the river……