16th august 2007 - river kilometre 1474

we have been back on the river since sunrise. the border formalities in mohac go without any delay. there’s another press conference and then onward to budapest.

we drop anchor in the evening just off a sandbank. the water looks inviting for swimming, but the current is strong. in the last two days the river has risen almost a metre from the rain that fell in austria in the last week. as darkness falls we make a fire on land. I sit at the stern with my rod and hope tht nothing bites, I don’t want to catch a fish, I don’t want to kill a fish, I just want to sit there – the line on the rod is my connection to the deep, to a different, invisible, unfathomable world.

two weeks tomorrow the concert in linz will bring the first journey to an end. as much as I am looking forward to firm ground, to the mountains and not least to casting off all that has been frame and content of life for many months, I imagine it will feel a great loss, to wake up in the morning without the familiar view of slowly yet relentlessly flowing water, without the familiar sounds, noises, smells, without the familiar faces.

the world "outside" has become a stranger to me, and most likely I have to it too.