Locks, Bridges and More Locks!

The Canadian Loonie

7/8
     We traveled from our anchoring spot to Campbellford, Ontario, passing through 5 locks, the last one was a double flight!  This means that when you enter the first lock you are looking at the doors to the second lock.  It was an impressive site! Imagine a 5 story building!  Our boat went up 24 feet in the first chamber and then we entered immediately into the second chamber, rising another 24 feet!
       We ate lunch at a charming restaurant and enjoyed our first Canadian beer called Steam Whistle!  Even I liked it!  We stayed on the west wall of the Town dock.  This little town is known for a bakery called Dooher's Bakery.  It claims to be the "sweetest bakery in Canada."  By the time we got there, they were sold out of their famous doughnuts, so we took home a much healthier choice, bread, which was very good.

7/9
     We traveled to Hastings, Ontario, going through 6 locks.   It took all day to go about 15 miles!  The locks are part of the Canada Parks system and it is evident that they take pride in them.  They are nicely landscaped and equipped as parks, with shady trees, grassy areas and picnic tables.  Visitors come to watch the boats "lock through" and it is great entertainment for them!  Apparently it is a spectator event!  We struck up a lot of interesting conversations with the lock masters and people who came to watch us go through.  It was fun, but tiring.  Sometimes you have to really pull hard on your lines to keep the boat against the wall and out of harms way to any of the other boats.


7/10 -7/11
     We traveled about 35 miles to Peterborough, Ontario on a long stretch through a lake and the Severn River.  We passed by lots of pretty summer homes along the waterway.  There were many people out on kayaks and in small fishing boats, enjoying the warm, sunny weather. Lots of kids were swimming.  While we were traveling in the open lake, Karl noticed that the port engine was not getting up to speed, not engaging the turbo engine,  We stopped so that he could dive under to look at the props, which seemed to be all ok.  We had no choice but to keep going slow, about 6 miles per hour.   We love going slow, but the engines need to go fast for a few minutes every 4 hours, to burn off the carbon.  We were anxious, thinking that something may be really wrong, but after another few hours, we opened it up to full throttle and the turbo engaged.  Relief...hopefully won't happen again, but we will be watching it!

     Peterborough is a big town, about 80,000 people.  The marina is very nice and we met up with a lot of loopers for docktails.   There was a country band playing in the evening by our marina, which is situated in a park.  We rented a car and ran errands today, finding a Walmart so we could replace our coffee maker which broke this morning!  We are used to having coffee every morning on the boat!

     The internet is sketchy and I suspect it will be from now until the end of the North Channel.  Tomorrow or the next day, we will be going through the Peterborough Lift lock which is the most famous of the Trent locks.  It is the highest hydraulic lift lock in the world, 65 feet high!  Karl ran to it this morning to take a look at it and talk to the dock master.  It should be a site to see and fun to go through!

 
 
   

Double Lock