‘In Ulm, um Ulm, un Ulm herum’ is a tongue twister meaning ‘in Ulm, around Ulm, all around Ulm’ and that is pretty much what we have been up to. The Danube is still suffering from the worst flooding in 500 years of German records and the worst flooding ever in Hungary so we have been waiting for the water levels to drop before setting off.

All of the German locks have been shut for a while and we have found out that one of them, Oberelchingen, cannot open because the flood levels have damaged the hydrolic gates. It has meant that we have had to revise our plans a little. We plan on taking the boat down to Passau which is near the German-Austrian border and setting off there where the locks are much bigger and designed for commercial traffic.

In the meantime we have continued to enjoy the fantastic hospitality of our friends in Ulm. Mark and I have become features of Ulm Rudderclub, joining in with their training sessions both on and off the water. The top stretch of the Danube is a brilliant place to row with a 10km stretch of uninterrupted water. It was great to finally row on the Danube even if we had to row back upstream. Ulm Rudderclub have this fantastic tradition of sharing a Liesl which is a three litre beer glass filled with one bottle of Prosecco and filled with wheat beer. Excellent re-hydration after an outing.

Frustratingly, the weather here in Ulm has been beautiful and the Danube has dropped back down to almost normal levels. This should hopefully be a good sign that the water levels further downstream will also return to normal soon too. It has allowed us to explore the city though and yesterday we watched the local fishermen train for the summer festival which involves a jousting competition where boats row from either side of the river and try to knock out their opponents. If we stay any longer we will qualify as locals and will be able to take part.

Tonight should be our last night in town and it would be fitting to head to the rowing club for one last Gold Ochsen beer before we head off.