Saturday, July 1, I took a letter into town to mail and found the Farmer’s Market was open. (We’d been told it wouldn’t take place due to Canada Day.) So I went back to the boat for a bag and some money. Dan opted to stay behind as our new friend Debbie was coming over to help him troubleshoot the tension problem with his sewing machine. While I washed the beet greens and turnips, and shelled the peas I’d bought, they went over every aspect of the machine. (Dan learned a lot about what doesn’t affect the tension…) It’s still a mystery to be solved.
 |
| Downtown Trenton |
We left the marina close to 1030 and made the first lock of the canal shortly after. The Trent-Severn, which begins in the Trent River at Trenton and ends in Severn River at Port Severn, has 45 locks which lift boats 275 feet and lowers them 166+ feet. It’s 240 miles long, zig-zagging its way through this neck of Ontario through several lakes and towns. We’ve gone through 17 locks, and traveled 36.35 miles in two days. The guidebook says this canal takes about seven days, but we’re thinking it’s going to be more like 10-14.
On Saturday we stopped just after Lock 7, in the little town of Glen Ross, which boasts the best ice cream on the canal. There was a small general store right next to the seawall. How could we resist? We treated ourselves and then had dinner, ready to spend the night here.
Given that the area was a gathering spot for teenagers on ATVs intent on leaping into the canal from an old railroad bridge, and it’s daylight until nearly 9 pm, we decided to move on and take up space at the seawall before the next lock. It was considerably quieter there.
 |
Today (Sunday July 2) we moved on through the locks and took a break at the 2-lock flight in Ranney Falls, just shy of the bigger town of Campbellford. We’d noticed a pedestrian suspension bridge over the gorge that runs alongside the canal, where Ranney’s Falls are, and Dan realized a Canadian Tire store was only a twenty-minute walk away. He’s been hoping for a Canadian Tire store since we got into Canada. It’s one of those places that has everything you need, things you might need, and things you didn’t know you needed. We walked there first, before going to check out the suspension bridge, and brought back a bagful, mostly of things we didn’t know we needed.
The suspension bridge was very cool. Great view of the falls on one side, and the rapids running through the gorge on the other side. There’s a large national park on the other side of the bridge, which hiking trails and a campground, and it was very popular today on this holiday weekend. We opted not to hike, after our walk to and from Canadian Tire, it’s just a little too humid to be good hiking weather. We returned to the boat and pushed on.
 |
At each lock the locktenders ask where we’re going. We always say we don’t know, we don’t have a plan. They accept this answer cheerfully, but they really want to know some kind of destination because they call ahead to the next lock to alert them you’re coming. So we’ve taken to adding “what do you recommend?” and that’s how we found out where the quieter stops are and what we should stop for (like the ice cream at lock 7) and which stops we might think of avoiding because they are either wild with local boaters or they might be in a ‘sketchy’ section of town. So here we are this evening tied up to the seawall just beyond lock 17, in Healey Falls. (There are no falls, but the flight of two locks was very impressive with its 60 foot combined lift.) 28 locks and 203.65 miles to go.
 |
| Approaching Locks 16 & 17 |
We've had a request for more cat pictures, so here's Tommie on bow watch.
No comments:
Post a Comment