Day 16: 3 Countries, 2 locks, 1 day

Hainburg to Lipot (65km)

Indeed, I did take a rest day yesterday and a very uneventful day it was. I explored none of the city, only venturing out of the hotel to fill my tummy and then retreating back. Today I am entering Slovakia and possibly Hungary depending on which route I take. It may sound strange that I had to decide which route to take on a river that has dictated to the last metre my passage thus far, but today, at the first of two Slovakian locks, was a fork in the river. One side lead to a vast stream that stayed entirely in Slovakia and the other made up the border between Slovakia and Hungary. I wouldn’t know which path to take before I got there and the two streams don’t meet again for another 90km, so planning todays destination was not really possible, I didn’t even know which country I’d be in, never mind which town.

Hainburg is only about 4km from the Slovak border, and due to the current remaining fast, I was across it in a few strokes. Once across the border, it is not long until Bratislava, in fact, signs of the city were visible almost immediately. Bratislava, similarly to Vienna and possibly even more so, is not build surrounding the Danube, therefore some of the cities charm is lost when travelling by river. In fact, the whole experience was thoroughly unimpressive. It was quite a dull gloomy day which definitely didn’t do Bratislava any favours, but it was now abundantly clear that I was in a former communist country.

I exited Bratislava as quickly as I entered it and was now well on my way towards the first lock. Approaching the lock, the river briefly grew to its widest distance so far, it must have been at least 2km wide and as a result, there was absolutely no current. I arrived at the lock and remained as clueless about how to get passed it as I was when I was researching online last night. I decided to get out, have lunch and make a plan. My sandwiches came and went and no plan had been formed, so I headed into a café to ask for advice. I wasn’t expecting fluent English, or even any English, but I would describe the waitresses attempt at conversation to be flippant at best and purposefully belligerent at worst. Still clueless about which direction to take, I opted for the smaller stream that made up the Slovak-Hungarian border.

After a bit more paddling, I arrived at the second lock and the last one until Serbia. Once again, the stream split into two, one side looked to have a conventional lock and the other seemed to have a section of fast flowing rapids (by the sound at least). Not fancying my kayaking skills against a section of rapids, I opted for the lock side. I approached the lock and was met by a concrete wall with absolutely no indication of how to get around it. I pulled the kayak up onto the bank of the island that split the streams and headed to the other side of the island for a look. I could see that I was now well past the rapids, which were actually much smaller than their sound suggested, and I could potentially drag the kayak across the island and enter the water on that side. Not such an easy task considering the island was mostly forested. Due to a lack of other options, this is what I did. A lot of sweat and swearing later, I reached the other side and was back in the water. This is the last lock for a while and after the farce i made of them both today, I am mighty glad about that.

The locks had taken a huge amount of time, energy and reduced my patience to an absolute minimum. As a result, I was ready to stop pretty soon after the second one. I found a decent town on my maps that I could stay in and set about planning my exit from the river. Exiting the river proved to be more difficult than I anticipated, this time for the best possible reason, the river was flowing too fast. Eventually, by the time I did manage to pull up, I was so far past the town that it would be a long walk back, so I decided to carry on. I aimed for a village on the Hungarian side called Liopt, about 20km further on. The river continued at a great pace and the distance passed with ease. I arrived on the banks and found a boat ramp, the perfect place to exit the water.

There was a perfect place for camping just at the top of the river but I needed to walk into town to get dinner. I decided that my extra effort today deserved a hotel, so I forwent the camping spot and headed into town. The days exercise wasn’t over as the town was 4km from the river, taking almost an hour to reach. I wear waterproof boots while kayaking that often get water in them and then keep it there, therefore my feet are constantly in water. I have begun to notice that this has made my feet extremely sensitive. I noticed it a couple of days ago, after making a relatively short walk in flip flops that I’ve owned and worn for years, when I began to get a blister between my toes. By the end of this 4km walk, I was reduced to walking with one shoe off because of blistering to my heel. I reached the hotel just as the last of the days light had faded away and apologised for my late arrival and my appearance (and probably odour). The hotel was owned by a lovely couple, the husband, Wolfie spoke the English and welcomed me warmly with a beer. I asked if there would be anywhere in town to get dinner this late, he said there probably was a place open, but if they weren’t then I was to come back and they would cook me food. As I was drinking the beer, I asked Wolfie for some Hungarian advice. He began translating the words upon my request. To my delight, it seemed that the main words were, to my untrained ear, extremely similar to Germany and in most cases, exactly the same. It wasn’t until later in the evening that I realised that Wolfie is actually from Austria and he was teaching me German.

I headed into the village in search of dinner, Lipot, where I was staying is not a particularly big place, but it is quite popular due to its natural thermal pools. After a brief detour through someone’s garden, apologizing to the startled gentleman who evening I had unintentionally stumbled into, I reached what looked like a restaurant. I had passed the place earlier on my way to the hotel, by all appearances it looked like a restaurant, but it had an overpowering smell of chocolate croissants, bemused and with a sore foot, I thought nothing of it and continued on. When I entered into the same establishment, I found that it was in fact a baking factory, working through the night to supply the local area for the next day. The factory also had a counter where you buy some of the freshly produced products, a perfect place for a hungry kayaker.

A frustrating day with two more comically inept performances at the locks and then a long walk, but I’ve now got a long stretch of lock free water ahead of me, countries three and four entered and the JOG goes on.