Precision driving

We travelled through the night, and from what we could gather, there was a great deal happening while we were sleeping off the effects of our over-indulging. All told our trip takes us through 66 locks, each one requiring some very tight manoevering of our 130 metre long ship.

After breakfast Brian ventured up to the top deck and was chatting with our very friendly captain while he was manoevering us into one of the locks. His aim was to place the ship within a couple of centimetres of the side of the lock, and he demonstrated some real precision tweaking of the controls in order to do it. As he pointed out, a one centimetre movement at the bow can result in ten times that movement at the stern. Once we were correctly positioned within the lock a couple of the crewmen were running around frantically operating winches and securing the ship tightly within the lock. Of course it had to be done in a way which still allowed the ship to rise as water entered the lock. This detailed procedure had to be repeated for every one of those 66 locks. As a further complication there are a few licks, referred to as banana locks, which are slightly curved. Evidently they are even more challenging, and probably explain the occasional thumps that we felt as our ship travelled through the night.

Then there were the low bridges. We got to experience one of them. As we approached it the wheelhouse was lowered hydraulically until its roof was the same level as the upper deck. The captain meanwhile opened a hatch in the ceiling so that he could steer. At the same time we were told very strictly that we had to remain seated while we passed under the bridge, but were reassured by the captain that, provided we followed his instructions, we would be OK. As we got within a few metres of the bridge we became less confident of this and felt as though we were playing chicken with a runaway train. It was a great relief when we did pass under the bridge with no more than 30 cm between the tops of our heads and the underside of the stone bridge.

We spent the morning alternating between admiring the scenery, taking photos and freezing on the top deck then going down to the lounge and thawing out. By lunchtime we had reached Miltenberg a quaint old town with a history going back to Roman times. Our guide there, dressed in traditional lederhosen, introduced himself to us as Jim - hardly a traditional German name. The fact that he spoke with a broad Glaswegian accent added further to the incongruity. It turns out that he met and married a local German girl and was a long term resident of the town. He was very knowledgeable, and that, combined with a typical Scottish sense of humour made our walking tour of the town both pleasant and informative. We found Milternberg to be a well preserved and interesting place. Like so many of the towns visited so far it was moderately busy, but we can imagine that in the height of the tourist season it would be a place best avoided.

Following our excellent dinner on the ship we drifted up to the lounge where the onboard entertainers, a husband and wife team, were just beginning a Tribute to the Beatles performance. Having had a glass or two of the freely flowing wine we happily sang along, as did many others. Then Mary really entered into the spirits of things and had a really enjoyable time reliving her days as a mad Beatles fan and dancing to the music.Read more