Kayaking on the Czarna Hancza and Augustów Canal

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Trip Start Jan 10, 2005 Previous
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  Stary Folwark - Augustów, Poland
Saturday, August 27, 2005

We arrived in the town of Stary Folwark Tuesday afternoon after one of the most irritating bus rides ever. The bus driver wouldn't stow our backpacks under the bus, so we had to keep them in the seats. Then a couple of teenagers sat behind us and kept repeating the sentence: "Now, in English please. Why are you calling?" and thought it was hysterical. A really annoying couple came on the bus in one of the villages, sat two seats ahead of us, took seats opposite from each other and then made out in the aisle for half the trip. The landscape was beautiful though. Lots of small lakes, and tons of storks with their ginormous nests.

We thought we'd gone to the wrong place when the bus dropped us off on the side of the highway. We walked down the long street towards our pension and, expecting a somewhat touristy place where it would be easy to get information on how to rent kayaks, were disappointed that there wasn't even an information centre in town. We arrived at our pension, which we'd chosen because their website claims, in English, that they help organize canoe trips, only to discover that no one spoke English and that they didn't rent boats. They did have a Polish book about the river however...
It turned out to be a good place to stay though, since they had a kitchen and let us use their barbecue in the back, where we roasted sausages and vegetables for one of our best meals this summer.

We found our way to the PTTK waterside hostel to see if they had information. PTTK, as far as we can tell, is some sort of Polish tourist office that mainly has campsites and these waterside hostels (basically campsites with cabins). We started talking to the guy at the parking gate, which was a stroke of luck. He had exceptional English, and as soon as he found out we wanted to rent a boat he was like "ok, no problem" and made some phone calls to various people he knew that rented boats. He hooked us up with a guy named Marek who has his own kayak rental company near the PTTK. The rental fees were a lot lower than we'd expected, but the bulk of the cost was in the transport fee since we'd be doing a one way trip down the river and had no way to get it back to him ourselves. His transport fee was slightly higher than the PTTK's, but he was so helpful and we had a really good feeling about him. He and Pawel (the parking guy) gave us all sorts of information on exactly where to stay each night, where to get food, and other helpful advice.

Day 1: Lucky coincidences

We got up relatively late, but early for us, and after a big breakfast of scrambled eggs got to the PTTK to pick up the kayak (Marek convinced us not to get a canoe). We surprised ourselves by fitting all our gear into the expedition kayak's watertight compartments, since we had way too much stuff for a simple 4 day trip (because we'd been travelling beforehand).

To get to the river we had to cross a small section of Lake Wigry. It was a beautiful morning and it was awesome to be out on the quiet lake. Lake Wigry is part of the 'silent zone,' so it's not very touristy except for people going on trips or looking for a quiet vacation. The only people on the lake were us and a couple fishermen. We saw the first of many families of swans with their ugly ducklings (which are actually quite cute). Not used to the scale of the map, we overshot the hidden mouth of the river by a kilometre or so, so we got to see a bit more of the lake and got chased by our first swan family. Those mothers sure are protective, not to mention intimidating.

The river was totally different than we expected. It was really calm with a shallow muddy bottom and tons of seaweed. At times it felt like we were kayaking in a grassy field. It was fairly narrow for the most part because of the huge amounts of reeds growing along the sides. There were lots of twists and turns, and when the river widened the reeds formed natural mazes that we had to navigate.

At first we were almost all alone on the river. There was a couple up ahead who occasionally popped into view for a few bends and then disappeared again. Then suddenly we could hear shouts up ahead, and realized we were approaching a group of kayakers. They turned out to be a family of 4 kayaks who were mainly trying to tip each other, it seemed. As soon as we started trying to pass them, however, they all seemed to get more motivated, and it was difficult to shake them. Finally we got ahead, only to make a wrong turn and end up behind again.

All along the river we saw little cleared areas with picnic tables and signs saying "Pole Namiodowe." Being in a national park, we assumed these were free rest areas or camp sites. After paddling for a long while without seeing one, we stopped at the first one we found to eat our lunch. We were halfway through eating when a little old farmer approached us. We couldn't understand what he said, but the first word out of his mouth was "Nie" (No). Never a good sign. We were pretty confused, and asked if we should go. He said no, and we eventually figured out that he was asking if we were going to sleep there. We told him we were just eating. He seemed to say that was ok and disappeared. Satisfied that we'd settled things, we kept eating. Then two young people came out, obviously sent out to talk to us because they could speak English. It turned out to be the guy from the bus who'd been making out in the aisle, and presumably, his sister. They clarified that we were not planning on sleeping there, and I said we were just eating. I asked if that was ok, and her response was "It's not up to us, it depends on other members of our family." There was a strange silence, where they were just looking at us, and we were expecting her to explain what she meant and what they wanted from us. I asked whether a Pole Namiodowe was a rest stop or just a camp site, and she said "both, kind of." We never did find out what exactly they wanted from us, but when we told them we were planning on leaving in five minutes they said it was ok and left, and we decided to get the hell out of there.

We got to our destination, PTTK Wysoki Most, earlier than expected, disappointed to see the family of kayakers there. We'd been enjoying the solitude of earlier that day, and this meant that they'd be with us on the river again the next day. They turned out to be our saviours though. I went up to the office to check if they had available cabins only to find that the place seemed to be closed. We didn't have a tent, and these PTTK's were the only place we could stay. It was already 3 pm and we didn't know how long it would take to get to the next one, our next day's destination. Confused, we asked the family what the deal was with this hostel. Apparently it was closed down for the season, but they weren't staying there. They had rented kayaks for the day from a man who had a private waterside hostel on a nearby lake. He was picking them up there and driving them to his place. He showed up a few minutes later and told us we could stay at his hostel and he could bring us back in the morning for an extra 10 zl, which he later waived anyway.

He turned out to be a really nice guy, and the hostel was definitely the best we stayed at. It was the only hostel we stayed at that was on a lake, so the swimming was nice. He had a sauna that the family invited us to use, and Greg spent the afternoon jumping from the sauna to the lake. There was a big fire pit with lots of wood for us to use to roast the sausages we bought in a not-so-nearby town we walked to along the highway. (One of those towns you see in movies, where strangers never manage to escape in time. The only store also served as the only bar, outside of which were a handful of drunks punching each other.)

We were so lucky that day. That family was at the PTTK for probably 10 minutes total. If we hadn't overshot the river, or been kicked out of the Pole Namiodowe, we would've missed them. We would never have found the place otherwise, because it was on a lake that wasn't connected to the river, about a 2 km drive away, and it wasn't on the map.

Day Two: Ah, sweet solitude

We got on the river at about 9:45 for our lightest day of the trip - 13 km. Our arms didn't hurt nearly as much as we'd expected and although we'd decided to keep it easy if we wanted to, we paddled fairly steadily. It was probably a good thing to have had that hard day of paddling in Mikolajki the week before - we got used to the kayak, and the river was so easy compared to the lakes.

All along the river that morning there were women selling food. We passed a woman in a rowboat, pushing herself along with a pole, and when we passed she stopped and held up a sign advertising fresh buns and other food. A little farther on there were women kneeling on small docks selling produce and baked goods. We got ripped off by one of them who was irritated that we weren't buying her apple pies, but ended up with amazingly fresh carrots and tomatoes.
The stretch of river after Wysoki Most was probably the most beautiful. Instead of farmers' fields on either side of the river it was surrounded by the Augustow Forest.

The route was more confusing that day but we'd gotten better at navigating and knew in advance where to turn. There were lakes entirely filled with reeds so that they looked like insane river mazes. These mazes were obviously not on the map, but we thankfully found our way.
We got to PTTK Fracki really early, glad to have most of the day free. Each riverside hostel has its own character, and this one was pretty cute. It was high on a hill overlooking the river, with an area cleared of weeds for swimming. It was really hot, and the air and the grass completely dry, so we were glad to have somewhere to swim. The river was absolutely frigid though, making a quick dip the only option. But amazingly refreshing.

We were sitting by the fire pit contemplating starting a fire to roast our kielbasa (we were determined to eat it every day, after all, when will be the next time we can roast sausage on an open fire?) when we saw a group of kayakers start pulling their boats up the hill. At first there were four, then six, and Greg was sure it wouldn't be more than eight because that's the most a trailer can transport. Then there were 8, then 12, 15, and still more coming. We lost count at about 18 kayaks when we were distracted by the hordes of teenagers overtaking the site. Our cabin was completely surrounded by boats and teenagers, and the fire pit was slowly being taken over too. It must have been a group of campers, and there were nearly enough to fill every cabin on the site. We decided to get cooking dinner before it was too late, so we escaped to the forest to gather wood. By the time we got back, we could see the teenagers flocking away from the site with their bags and one of the supervisors was stacking the kayaks and piling life jackets into a car. Relieved that we wouldn't have to fight through 18 kayaks on the river the next morning, we cooked our sausage in peace.

Day Three: Getting into the swing of things

We woke up the next morning to light rain, so we hit snooze and had a late start to the day. We got ready slowly, hoping the clouds would disappear and the sun come out. We were just about ready when there was a series of loud thumps outside our cabin. I opened the door to the sight of a million teenagers re-entering the campsite, a bunch of whom had plopped themselves and their stuff on our small porch to shelter themselves from the rain, completely blocking our door. I heard a few "oops!" as they started moving their stuff away, but when we came out a minute later to pay for our cabin, the door was blocked even more. After paying, the crowd was so thick we could hardly get to our door, but they moved their stuff when we asked them to. We decided to get out of there as soon as possible to avoid navigating through them on the narrow river, and managed to find ourselves a free launching spot for our kayak that had gone unnoticed. One of the camp supervisors, a crotchety old man, noticed our kayak alone by the river and decided he should have that spot, so he ran down with his kayak and actually set his on top of ours, shoved us out of the way and then blocked us in. When we started moving our kayak into the water he pulled it so it wouldn't be in his way by the shore, and almost pulled me in with it. He was rushing his kayak-mate, a poor young girl, so much that she fell down the hill and almost fell in with all her stuff. We got in the river just in time to make it out of there before they got going. I heard the old guy tell some other man that there were 28 kayaks altogether! It was easy to get past the group because they all had their kayaks sitting along the bank around the bend, and only about four of them had actually started paddling.

Getting away from the group provided great motivation for us and we made incredible time for the first hour of the day. We were working really well together by that point and felt really comfortable in the kayak. That was probably our best day of paddling on the trip, and the most fun too. The river was really twisty, more so than other days, and we were getting good at taking the turns without losing speed. Halfway through the day the river became less well-kept and we had to slow down considerably. There were fallen trees at every twist and turn that we had to watch out for, but it was actually pretty fun. We've decided that paddling on a river is way more fun than on a lake. Our arms and backs still got sore, but the turns required our constant attention and distracted us from the pain. Also, seeing the reeds so close beside us made us feel like we were making great progress, unlike on a lake when you can feel like you're not getting anywhere.

Early in the day a little blue hummingbird appeared on our path and then disappeared up ahead. He became our little river-guide for a bit, flying ahead and then reappearing around the next bend. We also saw some hawks or eagles circling overhead, which were less helpful as guides because while watching them we almost ended up in the reeds.

It rained off and on throughout the day, which wasn't really a problem until it started absolutely pouring in the early afternoon. We weren't sure where we were. We thought we knew where we were on the map, but figured we must be wrong because we didn't think we could possibly have made such good time. However, within about five minutes of the downpour, we saw our hostel, PTTK Jalowy Róg. We probably could have continued, but we didn't have time to sit and talk about it in the rain. Anyway, we were glad to get into a clean room and dry clothes.

That night we decided the sausage-fest had to come to an end. We couldn't roast our own, but the stuff we bought from the PTTK was pretty heavy, and the thought of eating any more made us feel ill. We managed to get to sleep by about 8:30, deciding to try and get all the way to the city of Augustow the next day, instead of stopping for one more night.

Day Four: Kanal Augustowski

We got up an hour early to buy ourselves more time since we wanted to go about 38 km that day. We had a back-up plan to stay at PTTK Swoboda about 25 km away if we couldn't make it. We didn't know what to expect, since we'd be paddling on the canal, with 7 locks to go through, and several lakes. We'd been averaging about 1 km in ten minutes, and we hoped that being off the river wouldn't slow us down too much.

We made it to the first lock in half an hour. It was deserted. I walked around and tried to find someone, but there was absolutely nobody there. We sat in the kayak wondering what to do when after a few minutes a man showed up. He let us into the lock and when the water level was at its highest, lay down on his stomach and stretched out his hand to collect the 3 zl fee. We wondered if this was standard practice, but obviously it wasn't.

The canal and the locks were built in the 1820's. They are either brick or concrete, with wooden gates that are opened manually by the lock operators. It was really a strange experience being in the lock in the kayak. The water just rushed at us while we held on to a chain to avoid flying around inside the lock. The water was disgusting and foamy, and threatened to spill into our boat and onto all our stuff. Most locks took us up, but the last one went down and it was much more pleasant. When we got to a lock we had to run up to the booth and pay the fee, and then they'd let us in. They were often not in their booth, but they could be found in their houses, beside the locks. Most of them were very friendly, and usually it only took about 20 minutes to get through, which still added a lot of time to our trip. One of the men was a total jerk though, and it was an hour before we could go through, since he was talking on the phone, showing rooms in his house to potential guests, and generally taking his time so he wouldn't have to operate the lock as frequently. We figured that the locks alone added 3 hours to our trip.

The canal was nice, but not as nice as the river. The sides were lined with wooden posts, nicer than the concrete you often see at home. Unfortunately for us, once we turned onto the canal we were paddling against the current. It was also a windy day, so the water on the lakes was pretty choppy. We still made good time, and would've made it to Augustow if we hadn't had to wait for the locks. We were confident that we could reach PTTK Swoboda, but all day I had a strange feeling that something was going to go wrong. I was sure it was going to be full or closed. We stopped at PTTK Plaska for lunch, and I considered asking the girl there to phone and see if there was room, but unfortunately, did not.

We made it to PTTK Swoboda by 5 pm, exactly when we expected, and my fears were confirmed. The place was closed for the season. It was the last PTTK on the map before Augustow, 12 km away (and across two more lakes, one small one, and one 8 km long). The wind was picking up and the sun was going down. There was a family camping in tents there but they couldn't offer any advice, and neither could anyone at the bar next door. I had resigned to sleeping outside, but Greg was more intelligent and called Marek. He agreed to pick us up at the next lock. I hadn't been willing to get back in the kayak at that point, we'd been in it since 8:30 that morning and I could hardly stand my back was hurting so much - I had a lump the size of a golfball on my spine from the hard back of my seat. But common sense prevailed and we started across the lake. Marek and his girlfriend, Marta, showed up just as we were getting the last of our stuff packed up.

We were thankful that we'd rented our boat from Marek. He was so nice to come on a Saturday night while his girlfriend was visiting from Warsaw and pick us up, and then drive us into Augustów. We told them about our misadventure and they were really sympathetic. They made some phone calls and found us somewhere to stay in Augustow, took us there and even came in to make sure it was ok. We'd been on the water for 9 hours in the crazy bright sun, we had sunstroke so bad we could hardly think and we were exhausted. I don't know what we would've done without them. We had unbelievably good luck the whole trip, and despite a few setbacks, had an awesome time.

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