It was cold and it was freezing. And Christmas was over. It was time to go to Sázava.
On the way to Petrov, the car showed minus six and the trees were turning white. There was a grey cloud over the hundred-story city, but here, just outside Prague, it was beautiful.
I didn't go alone, but I took with me Honza, a famous paddleboarder, for whom many a weir on the Vltava River has been fatal, and for whom this was the first packraft expedition. However, right at the train in Petrov, with a Sparta Praha cap stuck in his forehead, he told me that it was a real pussy to go on the water in such a scythe.
But by then the train was already speeding with us over the viaduct to Krhanice, where you just run down to the river and lo and behold. My favourite embarkation point is even more magical in winter, when the sun shines through the icicles over the water and the fisherman describing his lures tells us that he hasn't seen this before.
It warms Honza's heart to know that he doesn't have to drag the dreaded pump with him and put himself in a state of exhaustion from pumping before he gets in the boat. Flextail's new MAX Pump 3, by the way, will inflate a packraft in under two minutes even in ultralow temperatures.
Honza is also the owner of a pizzeria in Letná, so he chose waterproof clothes for today's pizza delivery by scooter, I preferred to go for safety in the form of a dryer from Tilak, for which it was a premiere ride. Spare clothes made up in case of a bath, hid the tubes of our boats, spare gloves, teapot and so on came traditionally in the bow bag.
It was a great cruise. Herons and cormorants perched on frozen trees, smoke from the chimney in the settlements, but otherwise it was deserted and empty and the river was said to be at some sixteen cubic meters. A wonderful ride.
A pleasant bonus was the discovery that there is cooking at Žampach and that the pub's staff is in a pleasant mood. We almost wanted to stay there and talk about fish and cormorants eating them, and also about Nedveds, music and pigs occupying Luka pod Medníkem.
But we drove on through the winter in the Pikovice rapids. And it was not so much the youth that kept us warm, but me, especially my sweatpants and undershirts and the warm fleece under the dryer and the temperature bubble under the packraft.
What can I say? Probably just that it was worth it. And also that Honza threw away his paddleboard at home and on the way he has a packraft tailored to his two meters and 120 kilos of live Spartan weight. As soon as he arrives, we are going to ride down the Malše from Rychnov with an overnight stay at my most favorite place. It has been frozen over here and there this weekend, so we might walk through the forest with the boat on our backs, but that's part of it. So if anyone wants to join in, let me know.
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