Day 4: From Dawn to Dusk

Dillingen to Neuburg (60km)

It took quite a while to pack up and get going this morning, I am still working on a system to fit everything into the kayak. I also took a quick trip to the supermarket to get lunch, deciding that it will be easier to buy lunch now rather than hope that I am near a town when I get hungry later in the day. I am discovering that kayak touring presents a lot more issues than cycle touring, you are completely stuck to the river, whether it be eating, sleeping or anything else, everything must be done is extreme proximity to the river. Unlike cycle touring, where a few kilometre detour to find food or shelter is no problem, travelling by kayak means that even something a couple of kilometres from the river is a real effort to attain.

Having said all that, I was actually quite enjoying the kayaking and much preferred it (for now at least) to cycling. It was a beautiful morning on the Danube and once again, I felt like I had the whole river to myself. Again I was unsure of the distances, so I set myself the target of Donauworth as a destination.

Once again I had quite a few locks to manoeuvre, a total of 5 today. I am definitely much better at them now. It is a seven step process that takes about half an hour (if everything goes to plan); 1) Close the bottom gate, 2) Fill the lock, 3) Open the top gate, 4) Bring the kayak into the lock, 5) Close the top gate, 6) Drain the lock, 7) Open the bottom gate and paddle out. As you can tell, I am quite the expert now, a far cry from the man that was searching on YouTube yesterday for videos on how to operate locks.

Due to the locks, there is very little current on the river at the moment, so progress remains slow. However, I am using this time to effectively learn how to kayak and getting used to spending many hours in the kayak. Despite my pace, I reached Donauworth around lunch time. I decided to carry on towards Neuburg which would make it a 60km day. At one stage, the river widened considerably, reducing the current to an absolute minimum, Neuburg was still quite a way off and I started to wonder if I would reach before night fall. I knew there was still another couple of locks to pass through and despite being much better at them, they still take half an hour each.

I finally reached the last lock just before Neuburg, as I was operating the lock, an elder gentleman stopped on the bridge and shouted something to me. I replied with my usual response, that I don’t speak German, normally this either results in them switching to English or apologizing and moving on. This guy didn’t even acknowledge me, he simply turned and headed on his way, I continued to operate the lock, amazed by his abrupt disregard for social norms. A few moments later, he came round the corner, it turned out he had simply not heard me and came down to have a closer look. He turned out to be very nice and explained that Neuburg means Newcastle in German. He also predicted (correctly predicted it turned out) that bad weather was expected for tonight and tomorrow. He helped me with the final stage of the lock process and I continued onwards before it got dark. It was around 9pm when I arrived in Neuburg and the sun had certainly set. Fortunately, again the campsite was right by the river, so I quickly set up, had some food and got ready for bed. An incredibly long day for such meagre results, 60km is a pretty good day of kayaking, hopefully it will be around my average, but it took me around 11 hours to achieve it today. I’m confident that my pace will increase as my fitness, kayaking ability and the current all increase and hopefully less of those blasted locks. I lay in the tent and as predicted, the rain started to fall from above, the pitter patter lulling me to sleep.