Then back up to the Plauer See at the yacht club where we had stayed many weeks before. They still remembered us and we had a pleasant night looking out over the lake. Next day we left all the charm of the lakes and rivers behind, and with foot down started pushing to cover the 500km across to the other side of Germany.
On our way over we had gone down the Elbe for a way. This time we went through a 20m deep lock and exited out on the fantastic Elbe Aqueduct which took us across 918m , at 25m above the level of the Elbe. It is a work of engineering over 60 years in the making and has only just opened.
Each day we have been doing about 70km which at 11km/h takes about 6.5 hours. Add in waiting time at locks of about an hour a lock and it is a long day (at least compared with what we had become used to). We passed by the VW factory at Wolfsburg we had visited on the way through and made steady progress to Hannover where we stayed the night.
The rain came down over night, but in the morning it had lifted to blue sky. We set off early and got to Minden where the Mittelland Canal crosses the River Weser by mid afternoon. 
We wanted to watch the closing ceremnony of the Games and by now we could receive UK satellite TV once again. So we pulled up just over another long aqueduct and watched the finish of the games. Then we went for a walk ove the old aqueduct and crossed underneath it and came back on the new aqueduct (one on left) that has only just opened this year. 
It is good having British TV again after only having news channels like Sky News and CNN for months (and of course the Olympic channels recently). This week we head to Munster and then down the mighty Rhine to the Netherlands.
