Fireworks and Exploding Chairs - TPF Germany Meet-Up

[Corry]

More great pictures!!! It really is impossible to comment on individual pictures, but WOW! What a great selection from EVERYONE!!!

What a talented bunch!

 

[LaFoto]

Since others took MUCH nicer photos when we had lunch in the vaults, I save mine (they are way too snapshottish, which is what they were, but must they LOOK like it so much??? :scratch: ), and since everyone went their own way and I was on my own from between the end of lunch and our meeting again at the train station, there's no need to show the photos I took then.

Which brings us to Thursday, 29 May. Day of the Canoe Trip.

Now I should point out that many of the photos I will show now were NOT TAKEN BY MYSELF. My father took them with his little camera. I have full authority to post them, actually he requested I "edit them, make the most of them and show them", and he did not want to register to post his pics. (Plus he's not at home right now, anyway, but went to Berlin by bicycle).

So, any of the 600xsomething-photos are my dad's photos of the trip (he and Florian tried to see us come past at various spots on the banks of the river Wümme), and the larger ones are those that I took with the Powershot. OK?

At the point where we put in the canoes, and everyone's still having this certain "I-am-in-doubt-about-this-entire-endeavour"-look on them .

How-to and safety instructions by Herr Rutner who hires out his canoes (I had to translate)

All our valuables go into the containers, which is why only very few have taken photos during the trip.

"Yep! This is going to be GREAT! I'll show them all :mrgreen: !"

And the first boats go into the water...

... the winning team getting an early start, too.
Immediately followed by Team 2 who made it second.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

OK, it's door time. What number was I up to? Ah...

57. OK, so you've seen this one before, but just for completeness...

58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68.

69.

70.

71.

72.

73.

74.

75.

76.

77.

Will that do?

 

[Corry]

Holy crap! There are a lot of interesting doors in Germany!

 

[Chris of Arabia]

Daft as it may seem, these were all shot over something like a 15 minute period in one street

 

[LaFoto]

Team 3, the only all-female team, put their canoe into water third and arrived third, but not easily so...

...though we looked happy enough on the outset!

And Team 4, the second all-male team, is in the water now, too!

Right enough: this is "our" river for the morning!

And the canoes come past:
1- the Dutch-American all-male team

2 - the Canadian-English mixed team

3- the all-German all-female team

and 4- the German-American all-male team

Witnesses on other canoes could see (despite the wrongly chosen focus) that the all-male-Dutch-American team's victory was not necessarily won with the fairest of means :shock:

Attempts to capture these moments of unfairness on "film" made the all-German-all-female team lose precious time, so they were all too easily...

...attacked and...

...overtaken by the all-male-German-American team. We put up a hard fight but it took us many, many bends in the river to re-gain at least third place!!!

 

[LaFoto]

Oops. Suddenly it was door-time inbetween my presentation of the canoe-race ... erm: leisurely trip down the River Wümme from Lauenbrück to the millpond in Scheeßel! Now the lack in sharpness of all my photos becomes even more evident with Chris's supersharp door photos inbetween

 

[Corry]

That's ok! We can follow!

 

[LaFoto]

Nevertheless: we're not there yet. It took us three hours to cover the distance (when four hours is the usual time for the trip!). Plenty of time for my father and Florian to rush from one point where they had easy enough access to the banks to the next (access was NOT possible at any point!)

So: next relay point - first canoe coming in...

...with the second in sight already, and this photo plus the order of my dad's photos suggest to me that the German-American-all-male team actually was in the second position and had overtaken the Canadian-English-mixed team at one point!

And the all-female team, last but happy!

No wonder they were last with "random anglers" casting their lines at them!

Tsk!

 

[LaFoto]

Soon we came to the Bridge to Helvesiek, which is where most canoe-ists take a break, have a bite and a drink, not so the TPF-teams who raced past --- with their host being last and unable to shout out to anyone "Break!" (But Hertz said, had he made a break on the way, he'd NOT got back on at all!)

So all my dad could do was take quick snaps of the canoes speeding past!

1- Dutch-American all-male team from above

Did my dad somehow miss the Canadian-English-mixed team???

Still last:

But soon after this, we paddled our attack and ...

...once positioned at the millpond in Scheeßel, which was our FINISH, my dad could capture the following...

 

[LaFoto]

The Dutch-American-all-male team coming in first...

(getting to the finish line)

...closely followed by...

...the hard fighting Canadian-English-mixed team!
And the all-female-all-German team actually came in third, yay :cheer:

...with a happy German-American-all-male team coming in last, relieved to have "conquered the Wümme"

Phew!

 

[LaFoto]

Now only get the canoes to the other side of the street and wait for Herr Rutner to come collect them. A drink and energy bar is very welcome!

Great things we have achieved today!
WOW!

 

[Antarctican]

This picture cracks me up because you can see all the mud on the front of the canoe, caused by the dirty-tactics Dutch/American team forcing us into the riverbank several times.

I should also point out that the combined age of the Dutch/American team is less than half of the combined age of the Canadian/Brit team, so we did pretty good to come so close to catching them!!

I'm glad you and your father were able to get some pics of the canoeing, Corinna, as it was a fun time.

 

[Unimaxium]

Here's my response to Chris's set of Lüneberg doors. I think these are all the same doors from his photos, but I zoomed in a bit more (mainly just because I had my 50mm on and didn't feel like changing lenses).

73.

74.

75.

76.

77.

78.

79. Oh, and a manhole cover. I guess you could call it a door to the sewer.

 

[Antarctican]

Great shots everyone! Love the colours.