This is the middle of Germany. "Off road" means "across someone else's property, destroying a large strip of it". It looks like they had enough trouble getting it the last 7km.
I presume the height of it means it won't fit under bridges on either road or canal.
Right. The better way to look at is is that once you exceed the size of the roads, land is extremely expensive to cross, while water is extremely cheap. So a 8993 km water journey + 7 km land journey can easily be cheaper than a 400 km land journey.
Germany is also home to enormously gigantic machines like the Bagger 288 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_288) that are so enormous you can see them from space.
The scale of this thing is staggering. In one incident it accidentally scooped up a bulldozer: http://imgur.com/gallery/rU3XU
Also shown there is what it looks like when it's on the move along a carefully planned and prepared route: http://i.imgur.com/51x5NIR.jpg?1
I'm sure the budget for moving a scientific device isn't as huge as something involved in mineral extraction where time equals money.
Jeebus that thing is huge. That wasn't a small bulldozer. It's not the biggest they make but it's definitely no joke. It weighs 18 tons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caterpillar_D6
This is from the tributary of the Danube to that of the Rhine, so there will be mountains in between. There may be tunnels, but I bet they aren't large enough for this.
Any company building this kind of stuff will be familiar with the problem of shipping stuff to the customer.
So, I guesstimate that this problem and the solution were foreseen before they started construction.
I presume the height of it means it won't fit under bridges on either road or canal.