Friday July 25: Campbellford on the Trent River

Since we left Lakefield last Monday, we've made our winding way south and east first on the Ontonabee River then Rice Lake and the Trent River.

Today we arrived at Campbellford. The yellow line is the travel we've completed the past week - the red is where we'll be by week's end. There is a well-founded rumour that there is a Country Music Fest in Trenton for the weekend!! Definitely my kind of place :-)

The lock just above Peterborough was a really nice place to stay. This is our second night. You can see the fountain in Little Lake in front of the boat.

We met a very nice couple, Sharon and Terry, who were returning from the Thousand Islands area - exactly where we are headed. They had a wealth of knowledge about the area - very helpful.

Sadly, I didn't get a picture of their Main Coon cat - really nice cat (I LOVE cats :-)) - all 26 pounds of him!! They have a second cat almost as big.

Kayaking was just kind of ok. There was a small creek off of Little Lake that went back about a hundred yards.

I tried to get Steve to go through the culvert (you know - clear the cobwebs!) but no way.

Reminded me of the spider scenes in Lord of the Ring!!

Only one lock Thursday and then a long run of 40 miles thru Rice Lake to Hastings. Kind of boring really but still it' easy travel in very protected waters

The lockmasters here had the cutest stuffed bear dressed in lockmaster's garb! Laziest worker I've seen at the locks so far :-)

River travel the last couple of days has been along either farm land or small grouping of cottages and home.

This doesn't appear to be the home of the wealthy commuting to/from Toronto but rather almost Ohio like country - complete with corn that is growing quite nicely!

Turtle sightings are common as the days have been cool but sunny. We finally even spotted a beaver hut off to the side of one of the marshy areas.

As we pulled into Hastings, we ran into Another Compromise again. First saw them in Lakefield. They are friends of Peter and Cheryl's that we had met last year. Nice couple.

The evening was quiet - I paid a visit to the local coffee house for internet. Seems our new phone had died - trying to deal with that has been interesting but I think will have a good outcome. I'm sure delivery service from Wendy will be involved somehow!

We were on the blue line (waiting dock for anyone wanting to lock through) before the lock even opened. Some days it's good to get an early start.

The best thing about longer running times? Steve seems to always find things to do :-) Me? I would just read or play game.

Steve washes windows!

Actually it just is amazing to me that we have been on this boat for almost 6 weeks and it took this long for one of us to decide we were tired of looking out of dirty windows.

Oh well.

The lock travels today have been interesting as the Trent River begins to drop rapidly down to the level of Lake Ontario. This lock at Healy Falls is a double lock - each one dropping 25 feet.

The size of the upper doors are amazing (picture right was taken from below the locks) - especially when we are at the top of the lower lock looking back!

Many of these locks have a power plant next door generating green power. This time of year though there is minimal water at the lower end of the canal system so even though in the spring there would be some spectacular falls, the water just isn't there.

The osprey chicks are growing up rapidly - almost as big as the parents now.

It's so nice to see the number of osprey now in the areas along the waterway. For so many years, it  was a rare day that we even spotted on soaring more less nesting.

Same for the loons.



Prize for the "lock of the day"? The third lock at Healey Falls. No need to go to Niagara Falls for a view of a great waterfall - just lock through at the back of the lock! Check out the video below :-)

I wasn't sure they were ever going to be able to empty the lock with all of the water coming over the back lock gate! But they did and we were off to Campbellford.