Canoeing in pirate-infested waters

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1 July:
I'M TAKING A FEW DAYS' break from the performing arts, heading south to the city of Naumburg, 40 minutes by railway, to go canoeing. A little girl in the train compartment is looking in the direction of the disappearing station platform, crying unconsolably as grandma is taking her away -- for the summer or just a few weeks? I walk over and show them a small Canadian pin and how to attach it to my shirt collar, then hand it to the girl. I picked up 25 of these keepsakes from my local Member of Parliament's constituency office in Victoria, to hand them out as tokens of appreciation on my travels. The girl, about three years old, still has a few more sobbing fits, but by the time I leave the train I see a little smile creeping across her face, the pin held firmly between her fingers.

The canoe rental facility is adjacent to the spacious, grassy, treed Blütengrund (valley of blossoms) camp ground at the confluence of the Saale and Unstrut rivers. I am being taken by van, with boat trailer in tow, to the town of Laucha, 14 km up river. A man watching me launch my boat says, "You're paddling alone? Watch out for pirates." I reply, "I am a pirate."

I find the Unstrut a disappointment. The water level this time of year is quite low, and much of the time I can't see much for the bushes, brush and eroded river banks beyond which are level fields. It's like travelling along a rather narrow canal. It gets more interesting near the half-way mark at Freyburg, where Neuenburg castle tops vineyard-covered hills. This type of agriculture is more than a thousand years old, and the region boasts the northern-most vineyards of Europe.

Near the canoe station is Kuni's Wasserschlößchen (Kuni's little water castle), but the name turns out to be less based on its appearance than an exercise in wishful thinking by the owners. The setting is nice, though, with the tree-lined Saale River on one side and expansive fields on the other. This guest house, like so many in this country, has a pub/restaurant with cozy inside seating and outside sun terrace. To reach it I have to ring a bell summoning an employee who takes me across on their private ferry. A cable strung across the river runs along the downstream side of a vertical steel post on the boat, and with the mere inclination of the tiller the boat scoots across the stream, the current doing the rest of the work.

2 July:
TWO COUPLES and a group of grade 10 students on a class trip join me today as we get dropped off 28 km upstream at the town of Camburg on the Saale River. I let the others set off first. Paddling in twos and threes they'll be faster than I. Besides, I prefer being alone with nature rather than hearing the chatter of people.

There are plenty of shallow, fast-flowing sections on this section of river travel, making for more interesting paddling than the slow-running Unstrut. The most picturesque area is around Saaleck where the river cuts a path through steep chalk and sandstone cliffs with two castles high above. I take my lunch break at Bad Kösen ("Bad" means therapeutic baths) after portaging my boat around a weir. As I continue along at a leisurely pace, I watch falcon, buzzard and osprey in the clear blue sky overhead. Occasionally, a grey heron rises from its hiding place as I pass by, a magpie eyes me suspiciously, while mallard ducks pay me scant attention from where they feed along the languid shoreline waters.

Two images impress themselves on my sight and mind. As I follow the flight of a bird of prey, I notice directly above me the small but sharply outlined figure of an airplane, its body white like a frosted glass sculpture, its wings slightly darker with a silvery hue. This ghost-like image seems unmoving, carved into the cobalt blue sky, and only I move beneath. Later I see another sculpture, livelier and close up -- that of a family on a shallow beach at river's edge. A young father, rather corpulent, sitting half in the water, half out, a bare-bottom child pouring water over his Buddha-like body as he howls in shock (and delight). Crouched behind him is his wife (I assume), her hands on his back, calm, topless, unconcerned about the man passing in his canoe. Again my impressions from 20 years ago are confirmed, that people here are far less prudish than we in puritanical North America. On my last Europe vacation two decades ago there were the occasional sights of women sunning themselves in public, sans bikini top -- and they weren't lying on their stomachs either! How amusing to watch my then teenage son undecided about whether to gawk or modestly turn his head away...

Temperatures reach 34˚C, but on the river it's bearable, with the cooling effect of the water and an occasional cross breeze. Suddenly, a gust of wind blows the Tilley hat off my head and deposits it right-side-up in the river. So I have to do a quick man-over-board manoeuvre. True to the manufacturer's claim, my hat only partially submerges, floating along in the current until I am able to fish it out of the water. Wet and cool back on my head, it feels quite refreshing; now why didn't I think of that myself?

3 July:
AFTER THREE DAYS of canoeing it's time to give the old body a rest again, and walking is definitely easier than paddling -- at least on my arms, shoulders and rump! Before returning to Halle I decide to pay a brief visit to the city of Naumburg (which I had skirted on my way to the canoe station) and its prominent St. Peter and Paul cathedral dating back to the early 11th century. What a relief from the oppressive heat of a windless day, walking in the stone passages and finally seeing in person the famous and, for its time, unusually intricately carved life-size stone figures of the church's patrons, arch dukes Hermann and Ekkehard II, and especially that of the latter's wife Uta of Naumburg, whom I remember from so many decades ago depicted in my high school poetry textbook.

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Photos

Unstrut River vineyards
near the town of Freyburg

Ferry 'cross the Saale
Motorless but not rudderless, this private hotel ferry is powered by the current alone.

12th century Saaleck Castle
Many road and railway bridges cross the river along my route.

Chalk and sandstone cliffs
rise vertically from the Saale River near Saaleck (eck = corner).

Salt mill in Bad Kösen
An intricate mechanical device was once used to extract water from underground saline springs for therapeutic and industrial use.

Portage
Steps near impassable weirs are designed to take boats out of the water. It's a bit of a challenge if you're paddling alone, but I always had the help of a friendly pair of hands.

Behold, the intrepid traveller
Both canoes and kayaks are "Kanus." But if you want to be specific, a canoe is called a Kanadier (here paddled by a Canadian, of course). Hope you're not confused...

Gargoyles
along a section of Naumburg cathedral built in the later Gothic era (see pointed windows).