We are seeing more animals in this stretch - black squirrels, chipmunks that zip like lightning, a couple of bald eagles, more friendly ducks & the ever present Canadian geese leaving their trails behind them. At one beach we saw a tractor cleaning the beach & his co worker setting off flares to scare the geese away. The Canadians seem to be great dog lovers & many boaters have dogs on their boats.
The last part of the Trent Severn Waterway is mix of small lakes dotted with large rocks (or small islands) with cottages perched on them, narrow rivers, very narrow cuttings, some rapids & a couple of tight corners. Colin has posted some photos of these. From Peterborough, the lift lock, we did 7 more locks and only 8 miles on one of the slow days. At night we are usually able to tie up at the walls near the docks and have dinner at the picnic tables & share docktails with other boaters.
Stoney Lake would have to be the prettiest part we have been to so far - with cottages dotted on small islands, clear still water & conifers & pines everywhere.
We anchor out when we can and at Bobcaygeon we had to as it was the weekend and all the locals were arriving for the midnight madness sale when the retailers slash prices and the street is closed to traffic. We had to try 3 times to get a hold out in the bay during very gusty weather & we kept dragging - it was very weedy.
Sitting at the locks watching small boats, pontoon boats & house boats manoeuvring in & out is a great form of entertainment. Going through small towns many of the tourists (it's summer holidays here) spend time watching us bigger boats go through - so we try not to make mistakes.
We did the next few locks in quick succession and reached the highest point 840 ft above sea level.
We stopped & had dinner at the only building near the canal - a local restaurant called Loch Ness. Th food wasn't great but it was all good fun.
From now on the locks are all going downhill. Beginning at Kirkfield lock (the lift lock) we did 5 more locks before reaching Lake Simcoe. It was blowing a strong westerly at 3 pm so we didn't cross & that night tied up at the breakwater sharing the space with many fishermen casting from the walls.We had a good storm with lightning & thunder but the fishermen hung in there with umbrellas or sheltering in their cars. The next morning we waited for the wind to abate & crossed in 2 ft high seas - not too bad. We arrived at Port Orillia marina & spent the day doing 'make & mend' jobs - one of which was repairing the mast head light. Colin had raised the mast after travelling most of the Waterway with the mast down to clear all the low bridges. We had checked that there were no more before beginning the last stretch & raised the mast before entering the lock. We went in & had not noticed that there was an insignificant gantry that was lower than our mast height. Our mast head light clipped it and snapped it back but the wires were all intact. It is now repaired. We also found a wonderful bakery (see Colin's photo) We spent a second day grocery shopping & met up with 16 other loopers for docktails.
The last & most exciting Lock was L44 'The Big Chute'. This is really a marine railway where you drive into a trolley that lifts you up out of the water onto slings where you sit as the trolley trundles up the rails, over the road and down the other side into another lake. We had spent the evening before tied up there & watched how it operated and checked out cables, drums etc. through the window of the large shed housing the machines. So we were ready to go first thing in the morning. An amazing but simple engineering concept that at one time was supposed to be a temporary fix until more canal was dug. It is now a tourist attraction & certainly a boaters highlight.
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