We stopped for lunch on a gravel bank in the middle of the river (thereby avoiding the mosquitoes... because they don't seem to like fly over water... who are much more numerous than usual this summer due to the massive flooding in early June) and grilled sausages, which we ate with Obatzda, Brezen, beer, and potato salad.
There weren't very many other people on the water -- we only saw three groups, all commercial white-water rafting trips in rubber boats -- probably because the weather wasn't very good when we set out in the morning (heavy clouds and light rain), but also perhaps because the water looked dauntingly fast-flowing, and, of course, it was a weekday. But the clouds soon thinned out and the temperatures were fairly warm, so it turned out to be a perfect day for canoeing.
The Isar is a suprising river: despite flowing through busy Bavaria, you see few signs of civilization. In fact, along the 30km from Bad Tölz to Kloster Schäftlarn there are only two bridges, and you only see two groups of buildings: at Einöd (where we stayed our first night on the H2H) and Schlederloh (home!). Here's a picture of our house from the river (we pulled over here, to take the camera out of its waterproof bag... which by implication explains the paucity of other pictures):
And here is Norbert, with his excellent canoe:
I've been meaning to canoe down the Isar for a number of years now... but not having a canoe (and, let's face it, being a bit of a lazy bugger) never got around to it. However, there is minor consolation in the fact that this was a particularly interesting time to be on the river. As part of the major flooding mentioned above, the Isar did some major damage to its banks (in fact I saw several large trees fall in to the river while sitting at my desk in Schlederloh!), and so there were huge piles of trees and branches on all sides, as well as in mid-stream. In some places the banks had been scoured clean of vegetation and you could see the underlying rock... sometimes limestone, sometimes a conglomerate called Nagelfluh. For someone with an interest in both extreme weather events and geology... a bonus!
