Log Jam....mmmmm...Log Jam.

Day 99

As forecast, we woke to a damp and dreary Cesky Krumlov. Despite the weather we made our way into town early to do a more through look around and discovered many places that we never even knew existed from our brief visit in 2005.

What really struck us was the size of the town, as we only imagined it to be a small town square with a castle and the river running through it, however, it was much larger and cuter than we imagined.

We stopped into a little café to have coffee and cake by the river and watch some people brave the weather to do rafting and tubing. We then moved onto the castle grounds and gardens and were again astonished at just how big the castle was compared to what we had previously thought. 

Getting a little excited about the upcoming coffee and cake.
A rare treat on a budget of £12 a day.

Times are tough when you're caught practicing your
golf swing with an umbrella rather than being out on the course.
Should of given up that coffe and cake.

Oh my god, I'm turning into Luke - I have no arse!

Moving up into the castle grounds also gave us a good viewing point to people coming down the last rapid that we had tackled the day before. It was great watching the look on people’s faces as they crashed into a wall of water much bigger than the rapids they had hit previously. There were also a few boats capsized and nothing funnier than an old bloke in his undies trying hopelessly to save his canoe from sinking as he clung to the side.

At the top of the castle looking over Cesky Krumlov.

Entering a slightly rainy Cesky Krumlov.

  

"This bloke has cut this hedge slightly off level on the southeast corner love.
Should of used one of those Ryobi hedge trimmers with the laser sight. Muppet"

A boat load of tourists getting a face full of the Vlatva.

With every inch of Cesky Krumlov covered, we made our way back to the van and started our journey towards Germany. As a brief lunchtime stop, we made our way down a narrow old road into the forest to what is called the Schwarzenburg canal. We hadn’t read about it at all, but thought it sounded interesting so decided to take a look. 

At first we couldn’t see the canal, as we were expecting something that boats would travel down – i.e. the ones you get in England. What this canal had actually been built for was the transport of logs from the thick forest and down to the larger rivers many kilometers away so they could be loaded on to boats.

The Schwarzenburg Canal - more like a very large gutter than a canal.

They used to send 2m+ logs down these narrow canals - amazing!

 People were employed back in those days to make sure the logs didn’t get stuck on the corners or on top of each other and they were scattered right along the canal – this may have been where the term ‘log jam’ came from?

With lunch out of the way, we continued on through the rainy weather with the plan to get into Germany as early as possible so we could allow ourselves enough time to get to Munich to pick Claire’s mother up and also purchase ourselves lederhosen and a dirndl for the upcoming Oktoberfest.

We drove through a couple of towns just over the border with no success and then decided on the larger town of Passau. With it getting late in the day, we decided to find a wild campsite and leave the shopping until the next day. We stopped at a designated aire in Passau, but found it to be completely full so the continued on further, eventually camping in a park and ride area on the other side of the river.