Day 12: The 4th Sport

Wallsee to Pochlarn (51km)

I think I probably slept the best out of the group last night in the tent opposed to the cold, hard unforgiving floor of the boat club, but everyone was still up nice and early and ready for another day on the river. After some nice snacks courtesy of Otto, Josef and Stefan, we were off, aiming for the small town of Pochlarn where there will be a local music festival this evening.

I was enjoying paddling with the guys, even though it was a slight struggle to keep up most of the time, it was great to have company and to learn about the region that we were passing through, which was absolutely stunning. I also enjoy their paddling style, it involves good kayaking for 20km or so and then a well-earned break for a beer or cake. The current through section was amazing, at one stage I calculated that we were going at almost 20km an hour! We stopped in Grein for a break, sitting in a café watching the Danube roar passed us.

Due to its natural beauty (and it is a weekend), this section of the river has a lot of large boats, probably the busiest section so far. The guys approach seems to be to kayak down the middle of the river and then choose the most appropriate side to defect to if and when a boat approaches. On one such occasion, we moved to the left and allowed the boat to pass, Stefan then immediately heading directly sideways into the waves created by the boat. I assumed that this way just his way of counteracting the waves, but it turned out that he had recently opened a beer and was afraid that it would spill if the waves hit him from the side.

We continued onto Ybbs, where just before the city came a lock. We exited the water about 2km from the city and began searching for a spot to re-enter the water. I’m not sure we chose the best method, in fact after 4km of dragging the kayaks, I am convinced that we didn’t. We went through the entire city, along the bike path, across roads and eventually found a suitable place to re-enter the water. On the back of the t-shirt I was wearing, it has a bit of information about the trip, including one line that says ‘3 sports’, after we had lumbered along with the kayaks so far, the guys sarcastically suggested that I should add a fourth sport, ‘kayak dragging’.

We had lunch in Ybbs and then we were back on the river. The river was once again flowing freely and after the exhausting 4km through Ybbs, I was pleased to hear that we were only around 15km from Pochlarn. About half way to Pochlarn, we were joined by Christopher, who Josef would later describe as the ‘best paddler in Austria’. The currents remained strong and with great company, the final kilometres passed with joy. We arrived at the boat club in Pochlarn and headed inside. We were to stay in the boat club which is perfectly equipped with showers, mattresses and a fridge full of beer.

After a couple of beers, we slicked back our hair, put on our best clobber and headed into town for the festival. Initial navigational difficulties were soon overcome and we arrived with the festival in full swing. Pochlarn isn’t a very big place but it seemed like the whole town and his dog were here to enjoy the annual event. A brass band from the Tyrol region of Austria were playing, eventually replaced by a local version later in the evening. Upon entrance, we were encouraged to throw some Euros into a glass bowl. I assumed this was the entrance fee and optimistically that it would cover the whole evenings refreshments. I was ready to put 10 Euros into the bowl when Otto advised that 5 would be more appropriate. It turned out that this was simply a donation to an unknown cause, once I discovered this, 5 Euros seemed more than fair. The evening was great, the band was fully dressed in traditional Austrian clothing, playing a mixture of Austrian songs and peculiarly western songs as well. By western, I don’t mean songs from the western world, I am certainly not implying that Austria is not part of the western world, the western songs were those that would feature in the cowboy classics of days gone by.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and we retired back to our pad to rest our weary bodies.