Day 10: Paddling with Giants

Passau to Aschach on der Donau (75km)

I had a day off yesterday in Passau, enjoying the town, filling up and planning for the next stage of the journey. The morning was spent entirely at an outdoor shop attempting to get a replacement pole for the tent. After a couple of painstaking hours, we finally managed to fix the pole by inserting a new section into it to replace the faulty piece. This long episode severely interrupted my plan to lie in bed all day eating. However, it was important to get the pole fixed and I returned home in time to spend the afternoon doing absolutely nothing. I had allocated some time to planning the Austrian section of the trip, however, I quickly realised that one of the benefits of travelling by river is that there isn’t really anything to plan. You have no alternative routes to take, therefore you have no decisions to make. I also had no idea what kind of currents there would be, so even trying to plan distances would be difficult. So I gave up planning and went back to eating for the rest of the day.

The aim for the day was to take a decent chunk out of Austria, with a couple of potential destinations in mind. I returned to the kayak in the morning to find that I had been parked in by a large tourist ship. Fortunately, there was just enough space for me to squeeze through and I was on my way. Exiting Passau was fast, just as you are leaving the town, another river of similar size to the Danube flows into it. This river brings with it a tremendous current and a slightly different colour. The Danube so far has been a dull brown colour, while this one was a much milkier brown colour. It was a grey morning, but still pleasantly warm and the kilometres were passing nicely. Within a few kilometres of leaving Passau, I had reached the Austrian border. Well I had sort of reached the border, for the next few kilometres, the Danube acts as the border, therefore I was paddling with Germany on my left and Austria on my right. The current began to die down as I approached the first lock of the day. The lock also acts as the official end of Germany, from now on it would be Austria on both sides. As I approached the lock, I could see that it was open, I looked around to see the William Shakespeare ship meandering towards me. This was perfect timing, I waited for it to pass and then sneaked in with it. Nobody said anything, one of the crew even gave me a wave, so I assumed everything was fine. The gate closed behind us and the water began to drain. Once drained, the locks door opened and we were off, the most improbable battle since David toppled Goliath with a stone to the eye. Unfortunately, this time, victory was to be denied for the little guy as the ship powered off into the distance.

Going through Austria was a joy, the river was now passing through mountains with steep sides covered in trees, the sun was out and paddling was good. The current again began to slow as I approached the second lock of the day and once it again it was open awaiting an imminent ship. I again nipped in with my much larger colleague and despite the lock taking forever to drain, saved a good bit of time and energy in the process. It was early evening as I approached my destination for the day, a campsite a few kilometres down from Aschach on der Donau. The campsite was a couple of kilometres from the river, so I found a good place to pull up, took everything I needed for the night and tied the kayak tightly to a tree. A strong start to Austria with some of the nicest scenery on the whole trip so far. I am told that this section is the most popular part of the Danube cycle route, so I am hoping for more of the same.