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| Prison walls, outskirts of Celle |
Cloudy start, sunny spells but a
cold breeze. We set off first at 9.10 am and Snail followed as we were moored
on the outside. The final navigable reach of the Aller was pleasant but scary.
Scenery bucolic, meadows with horses and cows backed by forests – but in actual
fact, looking at the road map, roads and houses were never very far away from
the river – just out of reach of the floods. As before, the flow started off
gently just above a lock, between 1 to 1.5kph, but the depth was alarming on
the echo sounder as more and more often the depth dropped below a metre beneath
the bottom of the boat – which would be fantastic on UK shallow canals, but on
a fast flowing narrow river with bends and sandbanks it was a bit
nerve-wracking to say the least. At KP8 there was a buzzard sitting
nonchalantly on the sign, but as always, as soon as the button was pressed on
the camera, it flew off. I was steering when suddenly faced with a pair of no entry
signs on either bank of what appeared to be the navigation, ie straight on at
KP5.5, with a narrower stream flowing in from the right, I was undecided which
way to go.
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| Road and rail bridges. Celle. R. Aller |
I buzzed Mike to come out quick. Slowed down to take stock of the
situation as nothing was marked on the “chart” in the Weser-Handbuch and
nothing showed on the road map either (which shows every little tributary).
More of the flow seemed to be coming in from the right hand side, so we turned
right and kept our fingers crossed. With a sigh of relief, we picked up the
speed to cruising normal for this river as we passed a kilometre post and knew
we were going the right way. The river became narrower and narrower as we
passed the first boat club moorings where there were plenty of spaces, which we
noted for later - just in case. Under a road bridge and round a couple more
bends. We passed the yacht club moorings before the railway bridge and found
there were no boats at all moored there. Under the railway bridge with the
river flowing faster as we spied a building with bikes parked in front of it
and barbed wire round the tops of its walls, and quickly deduced that it was a
prison! The river got narrower and bendier as well as faster, we were starting
to worry about turning round, there’s not enough width for us to wind, never
mind about the Snail who’s three metres longer.
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| Moored in the haven at Celle. R. Aller |
A tributary flowed in from the
left and the banks were lined with wooden piling. Then we could see a trip boat
in front of us! What! How did that get up here?? The river went right and
looked even narrower, shallower and faster, so we went on towards the tripper
and found ourselves in a lovely deep wide basin, with pontoon moorings for
small boats to our left, the tripper straight in front and a long floating
staging at the foot of a high wall (about 4m) with a ramp to the top on our
right. Whew! That was a relief to find somewhere out of the flow that was wide
enough to wind in. Said hello to the couple with the wedge-shaped cruiser that
was tied in among the other small boats as a man at the top of the wall shouted
OK and indicated the long pontoon. Great. It was just before midday. Oll turned
the Snail and moored nearest the ramp, we came in behind and tied to the edging
bars along the wooden decking. The old guy came down the ramp to welcome us and
wanted to take ropes (but didn’t get them as people always, always have to pull
them!). I got off to tie up as Mike brought the stern level with the pontoon.
The old man didn’t speak any English but seemed to understand a bit. Once we
were secured Mike and Oll went to the clubhouse with him, where he gave them
keys to the club for toilets and showers and a key to the gate to get out.
Price for two nights including water and electric was 18€ each boat.
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