We packed up our little tent and sleeping bags, grabbed our inflatable boat, and packed everything onto our bikes. Erik just found himself a cargo bike on Craigslist, which made lugging all this stuff possible.
The boys and I managed to get ourselves onto the 9:00 train from Alexanderplatz on Saturday morning and rode to Magdeburg, where we barely made our change. We had an excellent tip from Iris about getting off at Gnadau instead of Shönebeck. Schönebeck was 12 kilometers from the town of Barby (near the camp) while Gnadau was only 7.
The weather report had been forecasting rain and wind for the region for the whole weekend, so we were all geared up with rain boots and ponchos, ready to brave the elements. When we got off the train in Gnadau, we were excited to see a partly cloudy sky and not a raindrop in sight. We changed out of our rain boots, repacked our bikes, and looked at our gps coordinates, compass, and map.
According to the map, we just needed to keep going West and South and we would eventually hit either the Elbe River or the Saale. To the southwest of us was a vast expanse of corn and wheat fields, with dirt tractor roads running between them. So, off we went between the fields. Every time we got to a fork in the road we would check our bearings again to figure out which way to go, until eventually we hit a paved road with a bike path next to it. There was an arrow-shaped sign planted there, reading "Barby 4km."
We took our time biking the last few kilometers. We could tell the threat of rain was an empty one. In Barby we stopped at the store to get some extra food and when we got to the camp we were greeted by Jutta, the event organizer, who had been expecting us. She told us to plant our tents wherever we liked in the camping area and we set off to find a good spot. The boys picked a place between two trees, thinking that we might want to put up our tarp in case it did start raining in the night.
Once everything was all set up, we went over to meet some more of our fellow campers and to explore the river banks. Iris was out on her impressive inflatable boat, paddling a group of people on a tour of the Elbe. When she got back, I went to meet her. Then we fetched the boys, who were playing a game in the tent, and soon it was time for a big camp dinner.
Vigo and Kiran were eager to get the campfire going. They were shown the fire pit and the wood pile, but asked to wait until it started to get dark. Instead of starting a fire, we blew up our Red Leviathan (that is the name of our inflatable boat) and played in a sheltered bay on the river, behind a little point, where the current wasn't flowing. The river was high and the current was really fast. Both boys would have liked to have floated our boat down river for a while on the fast current, but I would have had to swim alongside and I didn't want to have to be responsible for fishing the two of them out of the current if the boat got knocked over.
The boys were impressed by Iris's giant inflatable Red Army boat, a survivor from the East German days. It easily holds more than a dozen people. The Elbe River association, which she works for, uses it to give tours of the river and to educate people about the ecological and political battles that need to be fought to protect it.
When we came back from exploring the river, we noticed that our tent was looking a bit battered by the wind, and indeed one of our tent poles had snapped. Luckily for us, the camp was full of resourceful, helpful people and soon we had the pole repaired with tape and a metal cylinder. We moved to a more sheltered spot to avoid the wind and it held up the night.
The event organizers went out to a Bulgarian restaurant in Barby for supper that evening, but we were still full from our big, late lunch, so we decided to stay at camp and get the fire going. We had a big blaze roaring by the time everyone got back, and half a bag of marshmallows left. Our fellow campers were glad to see the fire and the boys felt pretty proud of themselves when they heard people pull into camp on their bikes and say "Oh! Look! The campfire!" We had a beautiful sunset behind us, the river to the right, and a big, fat full moon just over the horizon. The baby storks were standing on the edge of their nest clacking their beaks and it felt like the end of a perfect day.
(Next post... Elbe-Saale Camp Day 2)
