There were 6 locks to go through before we would arrive at Campbellford - destination for the night - 24 miles away.
The lower part of the Trent Canal varies from narrow waterways to wide bodies of water that are relatively shallow off channel. We're basically following the original river bed with the wide shallow area created with the damming of the river.
Fortunately there were areas where it was ok to cruise so we took advantage of those opportunities.
The day was sunny and cool - a beautiful day to be traveling.
We were lucky in that we were mostly going through the locks by ourselves. This means less time moving boats into the lock and a faster raising of the locks as for whatever reason the lockmasters let in the water much faster when a single boat is in the lock. We learned that the next day :-)
Finally - the last two locks of the day: a flight lock at Ranney Falls.
Nice in that once you are in the first lock, you just drive right into the second one - no waiting.
The lift in this flight is something like 70 feet. The current continues to be crazy strong.
And we found out just how strong when we arrived at Campbellford :-(
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| This year! |
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| Normal years. |
The island is circled in both pictures! It's just crazy!!
So one would think that we've been boating long enough to know that you ALWAYS dock going into the current right? (As the older gentleman who finally caught our line indicated to me :-) )
Of course I didn't think the current was really all that strong and decided that I could bring the boat in as we turned and attempted to dock WITH the current. Bad, bad idea. Not once, but twice!! WRONG! I ran into the concrete dock with the anchor platform not once but twice.
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| Riding to see the water flow and the park. |
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| Looking north toward town from the suspension bridge over the river. |
Really getting tired of the locks ....
Some history of a dedicated group of volunteers that made this continuing vision of a family continue.
It was a peaceful night at Hastings on upper lock wall after a very looong day locking through the 5 locks - with 4 other boats!
Due to the design of the lower Trent locks, boats must use only one side of the lock when going up.
So we ended up with 3 boats on one side and the 4th boat rafted onto the larger boat behind us.
Which is normally fine except getting 4 boats in the lock takes four times as long as one - plus the one guy (and it was a guy - no sexism here :-) ) didn't have a clue about how to get his boat into the lock. I thought he was going to lose his wife several times as he maneuvered the boat so she could make a grab for the cables. I'm sure they were just inexperienced ..... So the five locks too twice as long as the previous 5. Tired by the time we were in Hastings for sure.
Oh well. All else was going well! Thursday was again a nice day with rain due in later in the day.Travel? A long day of 40 miles across Rice Lake and up the Trent River to Peterborough.
The rain arrived early but we made it to the Trent River before it really started hard. Weird but the day ended the way it started - sunny with a few clouds!The fountain is a fixture here from the centennial celebration of Canada 50 years ago. And when the sun shines through the mist? A nice rainbow :-)
We're staying another night - it's just time for a day off :-)
Plus the Despicable Me 3 movie was opening!How could we possibly miss out on that??!!
So we rode though the very nice park to the theatre that is downtown.
With a bonus stop at the small cafe on the river that Steve discovered served low saturated fat frozen black cherry yougurt!
Definitely a great score!
But the BEST SCORE EVER???
Steve had taken a ride to Walmart and being ever on the lookout: managed to find a NINTENDO SWITCH! What a surprise he pulled out of his backpack! This is the new video game system that he bought for me for Christmas but production has lagged way behind demand. Zelda is the best ever role playing game.
Can't wait to try it!! That will be shortly :-)
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