Category: Great Loop 19/20

July 5, 2019 – As we left the marina in Peterborough, we actually have to go through the Ashburnam lock right on the edge of the lake, before getting to the Lift Lock itself. We had noted that there were half a dozen boats tied up there the previous evening, so we gave them a chance to clear out in the morning, and headed over about 9:30. Well, apparently they weren’t all interested in going up early, and we had to thread our way into the lock between them. A smaller 40 foot boat came in behind us, and then….wait a second, they can’t be serious!!! The tour boat was coming into the lock, too???

Holy xxxx! The curve of their bow just barely cleared the dinghy on our stern by about two feet. Hang on tight! We had our hands full making sure that the lock fill didn’t toss us around, so not able to snap any pictures…

Once out of the lock, we got out of the tourboat’s way by tying up before the lock, to go see about the inside tour; we had been corresponding with the head of the waterway, and his PR guy about getting some inside pictures (with our 360 camera) of the lift lock, and we had gotten the OK. The crew from Justified rode up on their bikes as we arrived, and some lock staff came down to meet us.

Absolutely incredible! We got to go all the way in to see the pipes and mechanisms that operate the lock, and go under the pans and see the big hydraulic cylinders.

We took lots of 360 video footage, but unfortunately, the file sizes are so large, and the video editing surpasses the capability of the computer we have aboard, so we can’t really edit and share it yet.

We had a great time seeing the innards, but now it was time to take our boat for a ride. Going….UP!

Wow! What a ride! About a minute and a half – to go up 65 feet – here’s the video

We continued on, eventually staying on the other side of the Lakefield lock -near a nice shady spot with a picnic table. We met a very nice Canadian man with his grandchildren, and talked with him quite a while about advice for further up the canal. Interestingly, we would actually see him again a couple times along the way.

We walked across the bridge to town, and had lunch at a pub, and then back to the boat to celebrate a great day.

July 3-4, 2019 – We pulled into Peterborough Municipal Marina, and were met very efficiently by Ben (!) and a crew of dockhands to get us situated and welcomed to the area. Ben and his wife, in addition to working at the Marina, are the AGLCA Harbor Hosts for the area, and had a nice welcome packet made up with information about the area, and a few goodies.

As an extra bonus, he even gave me a ride to the Canadian Tire store (sort of a cross between a WalMart and Lowes) to get some oil so I would have it on hand when the engines came due . We have realized that going slow through the locks adds up a lot of engine hours, even though not a lot of miles, and that the engines will come due for an oil change before we get back to the US. They had a sale on 5-gallon buckets, so I got two – matching side tables for the salon chair!

There was a free concert in the large park immediately adjacent to the marina that night, but we walked up the main street to drop into a few pubs and restaurants first. As it turned out, the music was not so much to our liking, so we threaded our way back down our dock to the boat, through several groups of local boaters with their chairs out on the dock between their boats, just hanging out.

The next day, we took our bikes over to the lift lock to get a look at it first hand. Wow!

For some specs – (courtesy of Wikipedia): The lock has two identical bathtub-like ship caissons in which vessels ascend and descend. Both caissons are enclosed at each end by pivoting gates, and there are pivoting gates at the upper and lower reaches of the canal at the junctions with the caissons. The gates on the caissons fit into slots on the gates on the reaches, so that they open in unison. Each caisson sits on a 7.5 ft (2.3 m) diameter ram, the shafts for which are sunk into the ground, are filled with water, and are connected with a pipe that has a crossover control valve. The caissons are guided up and down on either side by rails affixed to concrete towers. The caissons are 140 ft long, 33 ft wide, and 7 ft deep and when filled with 228,093 imperial gallons of water weigh 1,700 short tons.

No external power is needed: the lift lock functions by gravity alone using the counterweight principle. One caisson always ascends and the other always descends during each locking cycle. The upper one is always heavier, by filling with 1 foot more water than the lower side.

We went through a visitor center, and then walked out to see the beast, from below, before walking up stairs alongside one of the support towers. Rob, the operator told us that since they weren’t too busy, we could walk over the catwalk to the center pylon.

Right next to our dock in the marina was a tourboat operation that took people up, and then back down, the lift lock, we got a chance to see them come through, along with a much 45-passenger riverboat cruise ship that takes people on a 5-day cruise between The Big Chute and Peterborough. That boat took nearly the entire pan of the lock.

Rob was incredibly helpful, in showing us and explaining the operation of the lock, and we got a great closeup view of the operation from the operating tower.

Having gotten a pretty good idea of what to expect when we came through the lock the next day, we hopped back on the bikes and rode back down the hill to our marina.

Our friends on Justified had arrived, and anchored out in the small lake adjacent to the marina. They invited us out to their boat for a swim and a 4th of July picnic, so we dropped the dinghy and motored on out. We all hopped in the water, and floated around behind their boat for over an hour, before starting the grill. Great meal and chance to catch up with friends. They planned to go over to tour the lock themselves in the morning, so it looked like we might have a photo crew on hand for when we went up.

As we left, we zipped the dinghy through the mist falling from a giant fountain in the middle of the lake. Well, I aimed for what I thought would be just mist, but it wound up being a little heavier than that – whoops! At night, the fountain is lit with color-changing lights – here’s a view of it from the city’s website. Our marina is in the lower part of the photo.

July 2, 2019 – Finally, with the big Canada Day weekend behind us, we departed Campbellford. We were worried that a lot of the other boats would have the same plan, and we might get bogged down at the next lock, which was only a short distance from the town. So, we left early, about 7:30, to wait in first position at the lock; as it turned out, another boat with a slight mechanical issue arrived shortly afterward, and we agreed to let them go first into the lock, to minimize that any maneuvering problem could occur before we came into the chamber.

Everything went smoothly, although eventually they had to hang back when one of their engines kept quitting on them. We continued on alone, and had intended to anchor overnight in a tight little creek off the main channel.

Tight all right! It was a hard left turn, past some fallen-down trees, and back into a crooked little channel that looked like a sure route to disaster. But it opened up, and after some deliberation at the helm, we found a spot to our liking, and dropped the hook. Although the water was clear, and weed-free, the banks and surrounding areas were a bit too….swampy looking for Chantale’s liking, and so going for a quick dip was a pleasure that only Ben enjoyed tonight.

The next morning, we found that the anchor light had attracted hundreds of bugs to come land on the boat and die, so we would have a washing job when we next got to a hose spigot. The next morning we would travel the rest of the way to Peterborough, a relatively large town that is right before the famous Peterborough Lift Lock.

July 1, 2019 – On two separate occasions, we’d stopped into an establishment in downtown Campbellford, across the bridge from our boat, and sampled the wares that were made some miles out of town at an old Church. So, on Canada Day, we first walked through the park to see some of the Canada Day festivities (primarily kid-oriented) .

Then, we unfolded the bikes and set out on an 8 km ride, mostly uphill, to the tiny crossroad hamlet of Petherick Corners, outside Campbellford.

And the angels sang, as we crested the hill and arrived at the Churchkey Brewery.

We got a terrific tour from one of the brewmasters, did a tasting of eight different beers they had on tap, and chose one to enjoy outside, before enjoying the long downhill ride back to town.

Later, a couple boats that we knew were come coming through the lock, so Ben hopped back on his bike and rode down to get some shots of them coming through; we had locked through alone, but they were a bit more cramped.

June 30-July 1, 2019 – Not sure just how crazy the waterways might get leading into Canada Day, we had decided to stay put in Cambellford, one of three small towns in the Trent Hills area. The town had outfitted both sides of the canal here, along concrete walls, with power pedestals, and their Chamber of Commerce very efficiently runs the money-collecting associated with overnight dockage. Before we had even tied up, the attendant was there with an information packet and the portable credit card machine.

The opposite wall from us (over a short bridge) had more boats, probably because it was closer to the bath-house, and adjacent to a nice park. But we were a stones throw from the LCBO (although we didn’t need to visit it).

We made it to some of the sights here, including a pedestrian suspension bridge over the falls that were bypassed by the lock; we saw it as we transited, and later walked back through a Provincial Park to cross it.

On our way back from the falls, we stopped at the big double (flight lock) lock that we had come through the previous day. It was interesting to see it from a different perspective.

All the locals told us that we should be sure to visit the chocolate factory (World’s Finest), and Dooher’s Bakery, voted as Canada’s Sweetest Bakery; we hit both of those, but skipped the Empire cheese factory, as it was a farther walk on a hot day, and we were pretty well stocked for cheese.

We had a good time chatting up the locals, and meeting the various Loopers that came and went during our 4 day stay.

Sorry, but we have fallen behind again. Today (7/7) we will stay put in a gorgeous anchorage, and among other catch-up tasks (and trying out our stand-up padddleboard), I will try to get to posts about our stops in Campbellford and Peterborough, the fantastic Peterborough Lift Lock, our first Trent-Severn lock wall overnight, and finally the great anchorage here in McKenzie Bay on Clear Lake, where we hope friends will catch up to us and anchor together.