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Wednesday 7 May 2014

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Rothensee to Bülstringen. 25.8kms no locks.

10.6°C Grey hazy clouds first thing, sunny spells later and very windy. Showers in the

Red kite hunting over canal embankment

afternoon. The two cruisers that had moored overnight had gone before we got up at 7 am. Made a note that there are no rubbish bins by the mooring. It was blowing a gale as we crossed the wide section of canal by the turning to the new lock that leads down on to the Elbe where there is a big commercial port at Magdeburg. An 80m boat had just turned into the lock channel as we set off. A two thousand tonne tanker called Detmer140 (86m x 11.45m) went past at KP315, followed by tug Nawa52 pushing two empty 49m pans.
Wind farm and colza fields
The chart marked water, toilets and mooring at KP315 but there was only a small canoe club there, so I crossed that out. The blades were all turning on the big wind generators near Meitzendorf, making good use of the very high wind. A large Polish cruiser went past with the odd name of Press and Play, its crew waving. As we went past Groβe Ammensleben there was the sickly stink of colza on the wind from fields and fields of the stuff growing on the slopes of the hills to the west. Before the big silo at Vahldorf there was another big wind farm with a field full of solar panels below the wind turbines. Polish boat Megan (67mx8.2m) was loading fine gravel 
First floodgate. Haldesleben. Mittellandkanal
at the end of the silo quay. The first pair of Egyptian geese that we’d seen this year went paddling past as loaded tanker Beate went by at KP304. The widened canal section finished as we approached Haldensleben and there were restrictions for the commercials, one way working. A cruiser went past as I took a photo of the first Sperrtor (floodgate) on the Mittellandkanal. There was a long section of moorings for the commercials with blue electricity boxes along it, each one had an X of bright orange tape on it, ie out of use, likewise the box with a water tap. The commercial hafen on our right was busy and boats were loading and unloading along the quays both sides. Noted two cruisers were moored in the WSA hafen along with the usual
Railway bridge. Haldesleben. Mittellandkanal
WSA workboats, tugs and a WSP police boat. The sport boat hafen looked full, so maybe that’s why there were two cruisers in the WSA hafen. Slowed off as a craneboat and pans that were working under a road bridge moved out of the way as there was another loaded commercial coming towards us. Both banks of the canal were under reconstruction due to the widening work. There was a queue behind Marjolien, a Dutch-flagged boat (80mx8.20m 1100T) loaded with coal slack. (Strangely it had a car on the back that was
Moored at Bulstringen. Mittelandkanal
registered in Hamburg.) First boat behind it was a small replica Dutch barge called Lily, whose crew came out of their wheelhouse to wave and take photos. They were being tail-gated by a Polish tug. Next was Elan, a loaded square-fronted tanker (80mx9m) and another cruiser behind that, all going slowly through the canal version of road works. The banks were being pushed back on both sides all the way through the town. As we went under the elegant suspension bridge Füβgangerbrücke Flora we passed a small German yacht, then all was quiet as we left town and had trees along the banks for the first time since we’d started on the Mittelandkanal. The woods didn’t offer much shelter from the gale.  We ate lunch on the move. A few drops of rain started to fall just as we winded and moored at Bülstringen at 1.20 pm. Immediately a loaded boat went past in either direction to test our mooring ropes. Mike waited for the light shower to stop then we unloaded the bike off the roof, easy as the quay was almost roof height, and he went to retrieve the car from Parey.

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