The kayaking trip from Nikopol to Svishtov on the Bulgarian Danube happened on the 22nd of June, 2024. At roughly 40 kilometers, it’s one of our shorter paddle days in recent times.

Departing Nikopol to Svishtov + Vending Machine Coffee

My alarm went off at 5:00, even though I thought I’d set it for 5:15. Jonas was going to stay in bed till 5:30 as we’d discussed the evening before. A little angry because of the alarm, I started getting dressed for today’s kayaking. There’s about 40 kilometers on the schedule from Nikopol to Svishtov.

When Jonas got up, the ball really got rolling. Before 6:00, we were ready to leave the hotel. Jonas had tried to pay someone for the stay three times the day before, but there was no one at reception. So we just dropped off the cash and key behind the desk, took a photo of it in case someone would come chasing after us, and fucked off to the river. What a weird way to run a business. Also, take a look at these Bulgarian Lev! Bulgaria is likely to adopt the Euro in a few years.

We took an alternative way to the Danube because there was a gang of dogs chasing a man in a mobility scooter and barking aggressively. The other route was nice, since we ran into a mother cat and (at least) four kittens who looked curious but also spooked by our presence. Such gentle, elegant creatures. The babies were looking frightened and curious at the same time. Of course, we still ran into a barking dog as well before we made it to our launch spot.

Jonas and I set up the boat. A man with a sort of stroller full of empty 5 and 10 liter water bottles arrived. We said good morning and so did he. He went down to the river to fill up the water bottles. Why? Perhaps to save money on government water for his vegetable garden? I don’t know. He was done filling up his 20 water bottles when we were ready to launch from the same spot. He hauled his water pram up the embankment with nearly all of them.

Once Zucchini was in the shallow water, Jonas picked up two water bottles and brought them up the embankment on his way to buy coffee. The man was very grateful, shook Jonas’ hand, and asked if he’s German. Jonas said yes, and the man said “Fußball” and made a kick-the-ball motion and a thumbs up. A wholesome interaction.

I installed the dry bags and the CabinMAX to the best of my ability. Usually Jonas does the latter, so I didn’t get it right (but I will, next time). Jonas returned with two steaming paper cups of coffee from the nearby vending machines. Living the Bulgarian high life.

Now, how do we get into the boat with coffee? This was kind of as far as the idea had gone. I knew we’d have to figure it out on the spot, but I didn’t anticipate having gathered an audience of three 40+ men up on the embankment looking at what we’re doing.

Jonas got in first while I held the coffees. Then I gave them to him and climbed in the boat myself. I paddled us out of the launch spot and into the current. Jonas gave me my coffee and we were both floating down the Danube.

Starting time: 6:42.

The Rock Church of Saint Stephen

I thanked Jonas for getting the coffee. It’s actually a really nice to have this so early in the day, even when he accidentally got both of them with sugar. It was a good plan, even though the conditions of the day were a little tricky. Because of a strong morning headwind, the waters in Nikopol were a little wavy to not be controlling the boat and to balance a drink. While trying to paddle a little, I almost spilled the coffee over myself. At some point, I just had to chug it.

The sun was already higher in the sky than the previous paddle day where we did more than 80 kilometers. We floated past the cliffs of Nikopol and the viewpoint we’d visited the day before. But the thing I was looking forward the most this early morning was spotting the Rock Church of Saint Stephen. In the white cliffs of Nikopol, there’s a little cave carved into the limestone with old inscriptions from the 3rd and 4th centuries. There’s a small path leading up to it and apparently, there are some icons inside to do the Orthodox thingy.

There’s a beautiful beach below the cliffs, even at high-ish water levels. I had assumed there wouldn’t be a place to land, because the last paddling weeks have made us skeptical about mapped beaches that turned out to not exist.

Because we just started to warm up to paddling, we didn’t make a stop here. Though today is not a super long day in terms of kilometers, we barely got started and this headwind is getting me a little worried.

With a strong current, we paddled away from the cliffs and entered the islet zone. A man in a small motorboat appeared from between the islets and came towards us. But he slowed down, just had a look at us, we said good morning, and he continued his journey upstream.

Headwind + Weaving Islands

We could have stayed in the shipping lane, but my OSM map chose a route between the islets. We still took a different route from the suggested, but it was time to see how the kayaking is in these narrow channels. I asked Jonas to check his map at the same time so we could agree on a route.

We kept Gradina (Градина) Island on our right, but left the shipping lane to go between the next no-name island and Gradina. We were now one hour on the river and it felt like we had little to show for it, but at least the wind had died down. When the no-name island ended, the island of Lakat (Лакът) appeared to our left, which is so high it rarely floods. All of this is part of Persina Nature Park, which is the protected area of the Svishtov – Belene Lowland.

Between the no-name island and Lakat, the shipping lane also surprisingly comes over. On the map, it doesn’t look like the main arm and the deepest channel, but all big ships must pass through here. A ship called Medusa traveled upstream. Another cargo ship came from behind with many barges and we tried to be a little out of the way. We almost got sucked into the channel that passes Palets (Палец) island on the right. Perhaps we should have just gone that way instead, but we paddled really hard to be on the other side.

The Danube Pride flying the Romanian flag overtook us from behind. I checked where the Danube Pride is the following day, and it’s already in Cernavodă, Romania, on its way to the Black Sea.

At the nameless island after Palets, Jonas wanted to make a stop when we saw a small beach. A man in a motorboat was coming upstream almost simultaneously when we landed. I think he was just checking us out up close once again, probably to make sure everything is alright. We just wished him a good morning to communicate we weren’t in trouble. It seems like Bulgaria has quite a culture of people looking out for each other on the river. Or perhaps it’s just curiosity?

We had a nine-minute break on the island, which I shall name Zucchini (43.701250, 25.035389), or Ostrov Tikvički (Bulgarian: Oстров Тиквички). There were hoof prints from some kind of deer-like creature. I hope they can swim, because the island is really small.

Belene Island + Side Quest

After the weaving of the islands around Nikopol, we were on approach to Belene Island (aka Persin Island), which is Bulgaria’s biggest Danube island. To shortcut the left turn, we tried to stay in the center of the river. There were no ships coming our way at this time, so we could do such things.

Persin Island, mostly known as Belene Island as that’s the closest town, was the site of Bulgaria’s largest communist concentration camp from 1949 till roughly 1989. Some people are trying to memorialize and make accessible the history of Belene, so far to little avail. Let me just say that Belene is on my list for a future visit to Bulgaria.

While I had my phone ready, we suddenly saw three pelicans crossing the Danube from Bulgaria to Romania. Pelicans! That sounds like we’re getting close to the Danube delta. But the kilometer sign on shore told us we still have 581 kilometers to go… Such cool birds. They’re in this picture, I promise:

It was 8:52 and we were more than two hours in, so I requested a protein bar. Jonas passed me one. It’s the discounted type from the Lidl in Lom. We have a rule to first eat the protein bars that have been exposed to the elements and these ones had been in easy reach on the 80-kilometer day, so it was their turn to go. It was only slightly melted and still very good.

We were on the final approach to the split around Belene island. Since we almost got sucked into the other channel around Palets, we didn’t want to experience that here and sorted ourselves closer to the left branch well in advance. The closer we got to the Belene branch of the Danube, the clearer we saw how steep down the water goes there. It’s kind of hard to explain, but a slight gradient of the landscape can look very dramatic on the otherwise flat water.

Of course, a cargo ship came upstream. We had to dodge it a little bit, but didn’t get sucked into the town of Belene. Part of me was sad about that, because I’d hoped to paddle that channel and have a lunch break at the restaurant of Hotel Prestige beyond Magaretsa (donkey) island in the middle of the Belene channel. We might have even chosen to stay in Belene had we split up the distances differently when discussing this back in Baikal.

The day before leaving to Svishtov, Jonas had a phone call with Thomas from the TID. Though we didn’t ask about Belene, he warned us to not paddle into the right arm. The first reason was the permanent pontoon bridge which is slightly difficult to portage around. I thought that would have been very easy, but okay. The second reason was the half-built Belene Nuclear Power Plant. There might be construction work in the area and the right arm might be blocked for tiny kayak traffic. He had to turn around and paddle against this strong current.

I would have risked it, same like how we paddled in the branch that feeds Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant just four days ago. But Jonas didn’t want to. My research concluded that Belene NPP is discontinued, because who the fuck wants to build a nuclear power plant with russia’s “help” since the year 2022 (or 2014) and its guaranteed energy-blackmail that will come? I wasn’t on the phone call, so I couldn’t ask Thomas what year his intel is from. And I didn’t feel like calling businesses in Belene to ask them if we can kayak in this channel. So we stayed in the main Danube.

But that didn’t mean this had to be boring. I found a mapped route on OSM and satellite view that went between Belene Island and another island called Golyama Burzina (Голяма Бързина). Jonas agreed and we tried to find the entrance to this side channel. The current was strong and we almost didn’t make it in. But at 9:50, we found the right hole and paddled into a canopied paradise with birdsong and solitude.

Though it was fun for exactly 56 seconds, we soon hit an area where a tree had fallen. A cat-sized squirrel got spooked by our presence and ran over the fallen tree and climbed up a vertical one. I tried looking for another way through, but had a bad feeling about this narrow channel. It’s beautiful here. There are so many teal-colored dragonflies and butterflies. But if we’re already hitting a fallen tree 140 meters in, what fuckery will the next 7.5 kilometers bring? Jonas held onto a tree for a bit while we discussed what to do.

There was a bit of fear that the current in this side channel was too strong, but when we began the paddle out, we found it rather easy. We were back on the main Danube at 9:58. Bruised ego from this failed side quest? Yes. But also happy to be back on track to Svishtov.

Paddling Around Belene Island

The next section was tougher to paddle than anticipated. We paddled past a beautiful landing spot at the 572 kilometer sign, but there was also someone’s house. We were paddling towards the northernmost point of Belene island, after which we can make the dip southeast to Svishtov.

The heat was here because the (head)wind wasn’t. But it wasn’t hot enough for me to make my hat wet with Danube waters. I had troubles keeping the focus while we aimed to pass between Golyama Burzina and Milka (Милка) Island.

At 10:42, we saw the other end of the Milka channel. It’s been four hours since we started kayaking. After paddling past Kitka (Китка) Island and the exit of the Golyama Burzina channel, we were looking for a landing spot. We thought we saw something, but it was a small motorboat with two men in it, fishing.

There’s an entire sandbank island in this area that’s not visible at all at these water levels. The shipping lane was far away from us till this sandbank. We saw some more spikey water chestnut floating by, which is called devil’s nut (дяволски орех) in Bulgarian, which is a name that makes a lot more sense.

We soon needed a landing spot to deflate Zucchini a little, and found something in an area with lots of fallen trees and trees that are still standing, but their roots are exposed to such a point that they won’t last much longer. I hope they won’t fall on us while we’re making a stop.

My ankles were attacked by bitey ants. Jonas almost lost his balance on the unstable soil. But we managed to have a break and deflate the boat. We continued after 14 minutes at 11:43.

A small cargo ship flying a pirate flag among others called Lea passed quite closely. Is this professional?

Svishtov Ferry + Landing in Svishtov

At 12:07, we were past the tail end of Belene island. We could see the western port area of Svishtov ahead of us. We looked into the Belene arm to see if it was blocked, but we couldn’t look far and nothing looked particularly relevant. No signs of fuckery from the construction of a nuclear power plant.

On the final stretch, we found more energy to keep paddling. We paddled past a port facility and some kind of industrial area. Steel mill, perhaps? A chemical plant? (Edited to add: pulp mill)

We could see the main area of Svishtov town and a lot of ships. First, we had to get around some kind of dredging operation while the ship that received the aggregates was moving away. Then, there was an anchored barge that appeared to move, followed by a ship leaving port under the help of another ship. Lastly, there was a small colorful barge too close to shore with a porta potty that wasn’t quite level. Maybe this port is all about scrapping old ships? What a mess. We paddled past a kilometer sign that read 553.

And lastly, we had to deal with the ferry between Svishtov in Bulgaria and Zimnicea in Romania. It crosses in a diagonal manner. Once we spotted it, we were already quite close. It was filling up quickly with trucks and cars. When looking up the departure time of the ship, it said 13:00. I looked on my watch and it also read 13:00. Shit, we must wait!

Jonas disagreed. He’s seen ferries depart late in these countries before. We can pass it. But I didn’t want to risk it because I couldn’t make eye contact with the wheelhouse. If I can’t do that, they can’t see us. It’s too risky.

We went to shore and waited for more than 10 minutes. The Danube cyclists and pedestrians also boarded the boat. Anytime now.

Jonas and I were a bit fighty about this. Not nice, but I really didn’t want to stress about it. But then I saw a truck roll off the ferry for some reason and another preparing to board, so I said let’s go NOW and we paddled past the entire ship in under a minute. There were lots of truckers and a few of the cyclists on the shadowy side of the ship looking at us as we floated by.

On the other side, we quickly had to prepare for landing. Meanwhile, the ferry had departed Svishtov and it was hovering in our peripheral vision until it finally overtook us.

We selected a spot in Svishtov where satellite view had a lot of small fishing boats. We found the place and turned into the calm lagoon. At 13:25, we landed next to a small fishing boat. It is done, we have arrived in Svishtov!

It’s crazy to think that it has just been a week since we left Vidin and we did more than 230 kilometers already. Next time, we’ll paddle to Ruse, hopefully!

Our Stay in Svishtov

This is how we spent our time in Svishtov:

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