We had no plans to stop in Belgrade and instead relaxed in our cockpits, allowing the Danube's currents to take us on an interactive tour. Barges rumbled past, loaded with coal, cement, sand and gravel, and fishermen, cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, cast lines from the bases of bridge supports and nodded as we passed.
The current was moving a sluggish two kilometres an hour and would continue to slow for the next 400 kilometres as we approached the massive Iron Gates Dam. We were finally nearing the end of the Pannonia Plain. The Carpathian Mountains fringed the lower end of the plain, and the Danube had carved a spectacular route through the limestone mountains, creating the Iron Gates Gorge.
This narrow gorge was once the most difficult section to navigate between the Black Sea and Austria. The river gushed through it with currents exceeding 20 kilometres an hour in a maelstrom of whitewater and submerged rocks. Several attempts had been made to make these waters more navigable, [but] it wasn't until the completion of the massive Iron Gates hydroelectric project, in 1971, that the river's spirit was truly broken. The dam raised the water levels by 16 metres, and the gorge was turned into a reservoir – a man-made lake surrounded by spectacular natural beauty.
Fifty kilometres before entering the gorge, the river runs up against the Romanian border of Transylvania. We rowed down the broad, slow river with Serbia to our right and Romania to the left. We felt a little uneasy looking across to the forested homeland of Dracula.
The current had slowed to almost a standstill as we neared the gorge, and the skeletal remains of trees protruded from the water like ghoulish hands reaching for our boats. We passed the decrepit industrial town of Moldova Veche on the Romanian bank before the river veered toward the looming mountains.
The entrance to the gorge is marked by the 14th-century Golubac Castle perched on a limestone pinnacle. The outbuildings of this magnificent structure seem to defy the laws of physics as they sprawl down the precipice to the water's edge.
We were about to enter the world's most spectacular outdoor museum, and apart from a few passing barges, it felt as if we were the only occupants. Limestone cliffs rose straight from the water's edge, some over 600 metres tall. The soluble limestone was riddled with caves, many of which provided shelter to the first humans to inhabit this area. Interestingly, one of Europe's most impressive archeological finds was discovered in the Iron Gates Gorge: Lepenski Vir – an 8,000-year-old Mesolithic village, built on a flat riverbank flanked by steep mountains.
An archeological dig appeared among the trees, a partly excavated terraced slope. Since nobody was around, we stopped and wandered through the area, imagining what life must have been like 8,000 years ago. Here, they discovered some of the oldest Mesolithic sculptures ever found, stylized humanoids crafted with incredible skill. The geometric structure of the village spoke of a society that was incredibly complex socially. It is believed the intricacies of this advanced culture laid the groundwork for the agricultural period that followed.
Occasional tight valleys snaked down from the mountains, creating coves among the cliffs with room for a few farmhouses with tidy haystacks out back. After weeks of travelling through bland open landscapes, we felt as though we had entered the set of The Lord of the Rings . The river snaked between vast precipices, mirrored above by a ribbon of sky. At one point, the river was squeezed to a width of less than 150 metres. The depths here were the greatest on the Danube, going down as far as 80 metres, and the river bottom was 20 metres below sea level. On the Romanian shore, we came across the remarkable sight of a bust carved into a pillar of rock over 100 metres tall. The sculpture was of Decebalus, king of the Dacians, who fought and won three battles against the Romans. The sculpture was as impressive as the heads on Mount Rushmore and had been carved in a setting of dramatic beauty.
Shortly after admiring the bust of Decebalus, we encountered a Roman tablet set at the base of a cliff in Serbia. The remarkably well-preserved monument celebrated Trajan's achievement of completing a road through this canyon, started in 14 AD. The road was an impressive feat of engineering, and large parts of it were constructed by drilling holes into the cliff face above the water. Logs were inserted into these holes and surfaced with planks. The wood had long rotted, but the 2,000-year-old holes remained. Unfortunately, we couldn't see them, as they are submerged by the raised waters. Julie and I examined the tablet, accessible only by boat, and marvelled at the fact that we were alone in a rugged canyon next to such an incredible monument. The tablet was about three metres high with a carved header labelled “ Tabula Traiana.” Decorative fish, flowers and angels were carved around text inscribed neatly in (hardly surprisingly) Roman font.
We spent two delightful days travelling through the Iron Gates Gorge and were almost disappointed when we saw a large dam in the distance marking the end of our passage through the Carpathian Mountains.
Excerpted from Rowed Trip. Copyright © 2009 Colin Angus and Julie Angus. Published by Doubleday Canada. Reproduced by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
