PART TWO: THE REST OF THE STORYPART TWO: THE REST OF THE STORY
CHAPTER SEVEN
WAKING UP TO A FROZEN RIVER
I decided to take a rest before continuing on my journey to Austria. I dragged my kayak out of the Vltava River and up into the pine forest. Meanwhile, the temperature continued to drop. I saw that it was 25 degrees below zero when I checked! It was like back home in the north of Sweden!
I started a fire and gathered wood for the night. Nevertheless, I didn’t get much sleep. When dawn finally broke, I dragged the kayak through the forest once again, this time to return to the river. It had frozen solid overnight!
I left the kayak and started to walk upstream, and up a small hill to have a better look. Shit! The Vlatava was frozen as far as my eyes could see.
So… I had no other choice than to drag the kayak back to the last road that had crossed the river. When I came to a village, I went to an old farmhouse and knocked on the door. A very friendly couple opened up their home to me and gave me food. They also gave me a warm place to sleep. They were an artist couple that had moved out of Prague.
Weighing My Options
My option was to get to České Budějovice (also known as Budweis, the city that gave its name to that famous beer) and then go on from there, hoping the river was open. The next day, the husband gave me a ride up to Budweis. We stopped at the bridge over Vlatav, and below us we could see that the river was fully frozen. It was still minus 25.
We checked if we could take the kayak on the train to Linz, but the man at the counter told us that it was not possible until next summer. After giving me a ride all this way, my dear friend looked crestfallen. I cheered him up and said, “No worries! I will walk to Linz!”
We said our farewells.
And there I was, in the snow and cold, starting to pull my kayak beside the road towards the border of Austria. The Austrian border patrol stopped me when I arrived, and then asked if I was smuggling alcohol or drugs in to Austria.
I took a long, quiet look at him. My beard was encrusted with ice and I was carrying a kayak with close to 100 kilos of equipment in the middle of winter, in minus-25-degree weather. It was the perfect way to smuggle alcohol and drugs. Only an Austrian would come up with a question like that…
Two and a half days later and many looks from passing cars with skis on their roofs, I reached Linz in the evening. I slept under a lifeboat in the snow beside the river.
The next day, I back on the water.
