We had to interrupt our Danube 2860 tour two times last year. We planned to continue the tour in the end of August, but because of the forthcoming date of the second Sekler cake festival we decided to postpone it to this year. On the 23rd of May Saturday we will continue the tour from the Iron Gate to the Black Sea, but until then let's see how was the last day on the 7th of August.
We spent the last night in Cabana Delfino located in Kazan isthmus. The motel is located right on the bank of the Danube, it has its own pier, the upstairs rooms have great views to the river and to the entrance of the isthmus.
After breakfast, we sat back into the kayak, and with rapid strokes we headed toward to the isthmus which was approximately four kilometers away. This is the day we planned only about 41 kilometers, we wanted to get to Drobeta Turnu Severina, but eventually we could not get even this distance. And why? So Kazan isthmus is such a beautiful place that it would be a shame to rush trough on it. However the sky was cloudy, it was still very nice, so instead of the bright colors, the grays dominated.
Soon after we entered into the Kazan isthmus, we had to notice that many motorboats were running on the water packed with passengers wearing life jackets. They were trying to reach a crevice on the right. We paddled there as well to take a closer look. It was dark inside and although it seemed that the water goes into the cave, between the rocks a lot of wood debris has accumulated. We left the crevice and continued our journey.
A few hundred yards down we noticed a pier where the motorboats landed. Curiosity had brought us there. The pier was made for larger boats, therefore it was a little bit difficult to get out and tied off the kayak on a little longer rope tied not to disturb engine boats.
We were at the Veterani cave. The table at the entrance shows that, this cave was used by locals even in the ancient times. In the seventeenth century the protection was reinforced. The work was led by the leader: Veterani. The cave was named after him. During the archaeological excavations in 1898, pieces of black marble plaque was discovered which was placed to commemorate the protection of the cave conducted between the 9th and 31st of August, 1788. The cave's name is written in Hungarian here: Veterani Barlang, next to it a Hungarian and a German text could be found.
In the meantime, it turned out there is a 6 lei fee that has to be paid to access the cave. Unfortunately, we do not store money in the kayak and it is inaccessible by car. Therefore it seemed, that we cannot visit the cavity. We spoke with the guide of the cave and told h that we come from Germany by kayak, which apparently surprised him. Furthermore, it was also surprising to him that we speak Romanian very well, although we live in Hungary, but originally coming from Harghita county. Finally, it touched him and admitted us into the cave.
The walk-in cavity is not big, approximatelly it is 20-30 meters, and the internal height could be around 10-15 meters. It is interesting, that it has natural lighting. There is a round hole in 8-10 meters height, where the light could flow into the cave.
There wasn’t too much to see, but it was definitely an interesting experience, because we did not think that during the paddling we will also visit the cave. In addition in a place that can be only reached on water. We said goodbye to the guide and went back to the pier. While we were waiting for a tour group disembarking, we talked with the captain of another boat. He asked whether we have visited Ponikova cave. As it turned out, this was the crevice on what we had a closer look before. He said that we can calmly paddle a few hundred meters into it on the water. We cannot leave this out. We untied the kayak and rowed back to the cave.
The traffic was pretty big, we’ve got what he had missed before on this beautiful section of the Danube: the tourist influx. We had to wait until pretty much until the freed up so we could go in. Carefully cruised trough on the alluvium, and we were inside the cave. Slowly crawling inside, because, unfortunately, the only light source our phone was. Sound of water flowing from somewhere afar, was likely to be some kind of waterfall. However, we could not go as far, because we were running out of light. The cave widened that much that we were able to turn with the kayak and slowly started to paddle out. A speedboat was waiting at the entrance when we came out from the darkness, with what we are likely to cause a surprise for the tourists. They were taking pictures of us.
We continued our trip. As we left the Big Kazan isthmus, the Danube widened, it felt like we arrived to a huge lake. We were at Dunatölgyes (Dubova).
The attraction Small Kazan isthmus is the Mraconia Monastery. The current shape of church building was built in the 1990s whit a stormy history, but a monastery existed on this place in the XV. century as well. It was demolished the Russian-Austrian-Turkish war between 1787-1792, then it was rebuilt and when it seemed it will be flooded because of the Iron Gate, they destroyed it again in 1968.
Right after the monastery a bridge could be found over the water, you can access the Mraconia Bay below the bridge. Here was the strangest and the most monumental part of our journey, the Decabal head carved into the rock. The statue of the Dacian ruler is 55 meters high and 25 meters wide, according to Wikipedia is the largest work of this kind in Europe.
After leaving the Small Kazan isthmus the Danube widened again to 1 kilometer. The river has a very slight S curve in the next 10-11 kilometers. S provides a very slight bend down the next 10-11 kilometers. It could be stated, that on this part the only attraction an egret was, sitting on a tree.
It was almost three o'clock in the afternoon when we caught sight of Orsova. The city at the confluence of the Cerna River has to be moved to another place during the construction of the Iron Gate, because the previous place of the town was flooded as the water was rising. This happened with the island of Ada Kaleh where we paddled trough not much later, right after the town Orsova. From this almost right-angled bend the power plant could be seen that is located 7 kilometers away, where we did not want to approach. As we learned from John Varga it is not possible to dock our kayak here, because the coast is very steep. The lock operational is possible, we have to wait for a ship to come, but this could take a few hours. At the cave a speedboat captain told us that we are able to easily get out at the Bahna Bay and the cars could reach the beach to fix the kayak on the roof.
The bay could be reached by paddling trough between a road and railway bridge.
A little farther on the beach a couple of houses lined up. We picked out an empty coast line, where a few fishing boats were lined up. We were paddling onto the coast, when the Border Guard’s minibus stopped on the coast. Two men got out of it, waited until we got out from the kayak, introduced themselves and asked for our papers. They told us that they have followed us for a while, with cameras, and then they waited by car to see where we would end up. As they said, a a bigger Serbian group has recently passed on the other side and did not know if we were connected to them. Our papers were all right of course, since we officially entered Romania at Ómoldova.
After the border guards left, we began to wonder. By car, we had to take the Iron Gate, Drobeta is 10-12 kilometers away from there. We did not know where can we put the kayak back on water again, but now we had to change clothes. We decided not to put the kayak back to the water for 8-9 kilometers and for 45 minutes. So, in preparation for the journey home the ship was fixed on top of the Tiguan, and we changed our clothes. The fishing man on the shore proposed to bring water from the nearby wells. According to his words it had a very fine and very, very cold water.
After we had lunch, we got into the car and headed toward to the Iron Gate. We decided to just look for the right point where we can put the kayak back on water, not to make it on the morning of the next departure time. We stopped briefly near the Iron Gate, but when I took my camera, a soldier told us that it is not allowed to take pictures here. I understand that strategically it is important to protect the objects of the Iron Gate, but there is the Google Earth, and the already taken some million high-definition pictures can be found on the internet, does these two matter?
So we drove forth , approximately 3.5 kilometers until we found what we were looking for: a boat with a restaurant next to a ramp. This is the place where we continue this Saturday morning ...
