Posted on June, 29 2005

By Bryan Marx

The Danube International Tour or Tour International Danubien (TID), as they say in German, began on the 25th of this month in a town in Bavaria, Germany, named Ingolstadt. This is believed to be the longest organized paddle tour in the world, consisting of human powered vessels, canoes and kayaks.
 
Ingolstadt is located on the Danube north of the 'navigable' portion of the river where the hydroelectric dams help to ensure that the water levels are deep enough for larger ships that transport cargo. I am taking part in this 50th annual tour of the Danube that will travel all the way from Ingolstadt to Silistra in Bulgaria.
 
Thanks to the generosity of Austrian company Grabner, who supplied a new kayak they have been developing for two years, members of the TID, who have generously let us join the tour, and the WWF Danube-Carpathian Programme, I am paddling along with this group of enthusiasts in an attempt to get a sense of the river as it changes and the opinions of those who live along it and use it.
 
I arrived in Ingolstadt two days before the trip began with the man who leads the Austrian section of the tour, Jannis Kaudelka. Jannis has been kayaking since he was three years old and it seems he knows everyone and has been on the river forever.
 
When I asked Jannis why the trip begins there he said that it was an area where there was a free flow of water that should not be missed for it was one of the more natural areas remaining this far south. Also, the Weltenburger Enge, or Donaudurchbruch, a series of sheer cliffs that meet the river's edge, were exceptional (he was correct). After that, he said "the dams begin and the Danube becomes a series of lakes" until it is freed again for some distance after Vienna.
 
When I arrived the Thursday before the trip began there were a few tents scattered across the Ingolstadt Kanu Club. By midday Friday there was little space left. By Saturday morning there was another whole field full of people and tents. There is a group from every country the river passes along the tour - Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria. There are also contingents from other countries, and this year there are perhaps as many as 300 to 350 paddlers, perhaps twice as many as some other years.
 
Despite the TID preparations, it is not an easy task to paddle all day, pull your boat full of gear out of the river, set up your tent, dry your equipment, and try to eat and shower before a needed sleep. Although dinner is usually waiting at the predetermined stops, breakfast is not and people are waking as early as 5 a.m. to make coffee on their little burners and stock up on carbohydrates before they depart.
   
This is a dedicated crew of river enthusiastists and they are not alone. Along the route, the TID stops at canoe, kayak and boat clubs every 21 to 61 kilometers, according to the schedule. So far we have been in Kelheim, Regensburg, and Straubing, and each community has a boathouse in some form with a variety of human powered craft.
 
One also sees many boats anchored along the river. Indeed, there seems to be far more recreational activity this far up river than there is commercial traffic, even beaches full of swimmers where there are beaches left, although the river is navigable by commercial ships further inland via the canal at Kelheim.
 
Straubing lies on a large hook in the river. According to local history, settlements existed there some fifty thousand years before the Romans decided to also like it. The Burgermeister (Mayor) of Straubing, Reinhold Perlak, met the tour group as they ate on Tuesday evening. A local reporter explained to me that this was a very conservative part of Germany and that the Mayor was an oddity in this respect.
 
Mr. Perlak said he lived close to the river since he was a child and especially liked canoeing. "One must experience a river in all the ways a river can explain," he said. "It is part of my home and I never want to give it up for economic reasons - they are going to change the river for ships. It is not worthwhile to have such a change. Such a change really destroys nature for thousands of years for something that will not last that long."
 
"Five miles from here we have an electric power station," said Perlak. "They wanted to stop the river flowing through this city." Mr. Moser, who sat across from the Mayor, shook his head in agreement. "I was president of this club for 20 years and a part of it for thirty five", continued Perlak. "Mr. Moser, a friend since my childhood, is president of it now, and we both fought, along with the members of this club, to stop them." 
 
"In our region," he went on to say, "the popular political opinion is to destroy the Danube. We have fought for this river, in our city - this encourages you to fight to keep them from doing what they are going to do. I am afraid that the only chance is a shortage of money, otherwise they will do it. I have been hopeful for twelve years people would stop this stupid event, but a shortage of money may be our only chance now." 
 
I asked the Mayor if the money might not be better spent improving the railroads, and he lit up. "I am myself an economist," he said and began drawing graphs and jotting down figures. "They will spend 80 million euros here for 2.7 ships a day. This could be replaced with 75 trucks a day. Just in terms of economics this does not make sense. The next power station is in Lishofen, fifty kilometers from here, that area in between is more natural."
 
Tomorrow, in Straubing, there will be a prayer for the Danube.