July 28-30
On Thursday morning we continued with cleaning the outside of the boat, in places we normally can’t reach when we’re in the water. At about 10, Brian and Helen from Bancroft stopped by as they were en route to visit their son for the weekend. We went into Buckhorn for breakfast
and returned to the boat at about 11:30. The props were ready by noon as promised,
around 1:15 we were splashed back into the water. We decided rather than going up to Bobcaygeon in the afternoon, and likely not getting a spot on the wall that we should wait until morning. We tied up on the wall by the gas dock at Buckhorn Yacht Harbour. That evening we sat with David and Claudia on the beach and took in the scenery. I saw this beaver swim by at dusk.
Early Friday morning, this plane landed on Buckhorn lake, and taxied to the gas dock near us. It was there to pick up a set of props that were being sent somewhere.
At about 8, we decided to leave and make our way to Bobcaygeon, a 17 mile trip, through Buckhorn and Pigeon Lakes. Here’s a few of the lakefront homes.
I liked this assortment of chairs, especially the large one for a friendly giant?
We were through the Bobcaygeon lock and tied up to the upper wall by 11:15.
We connected up with Dave and Claudia, who had driven over to check out the town. Our first agenda item was to find the Kawartha Dairy plant, We got directions, and walked over for more Ice cream. There is a definite pattern when Loopers visit small town Ontario, find either the Ice cream store or the bakery for butter tarts.
This was a small! We then checked out the Bigley’s shoe and clothing stores, the shoe store is huge and housed in this old bank building.
In the afternoon, I went in search of the laundry mat, and also found the bakery so I bought butter tarts, I would have bought fresh bread, but they don’t bake bread which I thought was odd.
We later ran into Randy and Judy, the hillbilly campers we had met at Lock 26, they were across the canal from us, and were headed South. We made plans to go to Shakespeare in the park at 7:30 for Taming of the Shrew.
In the end they weren’t able to make it, but Andy and I walked to the Kawartha Settlers Village to watch the performance. Since it was more than a 2 mile walk, we had opted not to bring our lawn chairs, so we sat on a rock. Not that comfortable, and the story had been altered to be in Toronto in 1989, so didn’t make a lot of sense. We weren’t that impressed and only stayed about 45 minutes before we left for the trek back to the boat.
On Saturday morning, we went to the Farmer’s market,
located at the fairgrounds—only a couple of blocks from the boat. We bought some bakery items as well as farm fresh veggies.
Tonight is midnight madness in Bobcaygeon with shopping until Midnight in the stores, but it was also Lock madness during the day here, boats were moving steadily in both directions from the time the locks opened until they closed at 7pm. Lots of jockeying for spots on the wall- we’re glad we came yesterday. Our friends Dave and Claudia did get back into the water today, one week after the incident with the house boat, however when they passed through Bobcaygeon, there was no room on the wall so they continued onward.
Around 11 Mike and Franziska Edney, stopped by.
Mike was a research scientist at the CGC until his retirement. We had been in contact recently as we planned on meeting, at the big chute. The Edney’s were in town for a family reunion, and invited us to Mike’s uncles’s Birthday celebration at Kawartha Settlers Village, where his uncle had been one of the founders. We walked backed up to the village, and met a few of Mike’s relatives. We were then invited to stop by the cottage on Cameron lake, which is between Fenlon Falls and Rosedale on Sunday. While at the settlement we toured the buildings
I liked this water feature and wondered if we could incorporate something like it in our pond back home.
On our way back to the boat we took a detour to KD, and had more IC. I think I may have reached my limit today, however I’m sure Andy will still be looking for the Ice cream at our next stop. We thought we should check out the midnight madness shopping , the streets were full of people and there were sales to be had. There was live music on the other side of the canal as well and fireworks at 10, I got a tattoo today on my arm so I can remember our time along the TSW. What do you think?
– there are some amazing homes/cottages,
In one place on the lake, instead of rafting together, everyone just parks on the sandbar and goes swimming.
We plugged back into power, as it seemed the Port starting battery wouldn’t turn over. The Captain put on his swim trunks and dived under the boat multiple times, attempting to cut off the mat.
we were through this lock by 10:10, and continued another 6 miles to Buckhorn lock 31, we were through by 11:45
I’ll have to try it again at our next IC stop.
we also found this memorial to members of the military who had lost their lives in Afghanistan.
We then went to the visitor centre
and looked at the displays and the video on the making of the canal and another one on how the lift lock works.
We then went a ½ mile to the lift lock, where only 3 of us went up. I timed the lift it took just 2 minutes and 17 seconds to rise 65 feet. Here’s the Captain tied off and watching us go up.
We stopped at Foodland for a few supplies. After supper, Andy returned to the Canoe pub for the Quiz night. He joined up with the fellow transients at Lock 26, 2 canoeists that were in pup tents and a couple in a runabout that were also tenting. Their quiz team name was the hillbillies, hobos and the rich guy. They had a respectable showing, but weren’t the winners.
It was a hot day, close to 30. For supper we opted to go to the Old bridge Inn for supper. It looked like we may get a rain storm, but only amounted to 15 drops of rain not enough to cool off.
I think the tentative plan is to move to an anchorage on Stoney Lake today. We are going out for supper with Jim and Wendy, somewhere across the lake, so they would pick us up at our boat.
This was followed by the Healey Falls combo lock 16/17.
We had planned to stop after the lock, and take pictures of the falls, however today there was no water going over the falls, as it was being diverted into the generator plant. So we continued on down the Trent River and went about 15 miles, there wasn’t much traffic in the locks, and we locked by ourselves, until we reached Lock 18 in Hastings, where we shared the lock with two pontoon boats.
The closest store is the LCBO, it probably only about 100 steps away – make me feel just like home where the MLCC is one of the closest stores to our house.
We turned off into the Otonabee River at 11:00 and followed it as it snaked along for about 20 miles leading us towards Peterborough. There was lots of boat traffic, and fields of gold
We reached lock 19 Scott Mills at 1:50 and locked right through as they were taking in boats as we approached.
We left at 11:00. Today was a very short travel day, as we only had to go about ½ mile to the Peterborough Marina, located in Little lake.
We tied up on the upper wall at 1:25. It’s been a hot day in the mid 30’s, lucky for us there is a convenience store nearby that sells double scoops of ice cream for $2.50. The owners of the store are originally from Transcona- small world.
this pub was next door, which we thought Dave, our neighbor would like.
We next went to the Suspension Bridge which is over the river. Here’s the view from the boat yesterday, and here we are on it today.
Margaret gave me a colouring book of flowers- I’ve already started colouring and it is calming! 
We were in about 8 feet of water and near a weed bed. Andy was able to find several Bass and Pickerel hiding in the weeds on Sunday night and he fished a little more on Monday morning before we left.
It was a great day
we passed by Belleville ended up stopping at 2:30 at Trent Port Marina for the night. 
The downtown is only a few blocks away I can see the Metro grocery store from the boat. We had fresh fish and asparagus cooked on the BBQ for supper tonight cooked by the Captain.
and were replaced by Brian and Muriel.
here’s the view from the 4th floor,
On Tuesday, we had planned to go to Westport in Upper Rideau Lake, however they did not have space available. It was another really hot day, so we anchored in a bay and 3 of us went for a swim. The swim was quite refreshing, however when I climbed back up onto the boat, my left knee was “clicking” and I could hardly put weight on it. Not good. I kept it up and put on a knee brace to stabilize it. We continued on to Newboro and went through the lock and tied up on the dock. Brian and Muriel trekked to town to see Kilborne’s country store, I wasn’t up for a walk. That night we had another great BBQ’d ribs supper, and played cards in the evening. I didn’t sleep that well as I couldn’t get comfortable because of my knee.
we then went on to Upper Brewers and made it there by 3:15. We were lucky enough to get a docking spot with power- which was a good thing as the temperature had climbed to 32 with humidity in upper 80’s. We turned on the AC to cool us down. This is the only lock with showers, and it was nice to feel clean again. My knee is still painful, but seems to be improving a little. Thank goodness for Brian and Muriel, they took over some of my duties, as I’m moving a little slow! In the evening we played cards.
We locked through Upper Brewers flight with 4 other boats- a houseboat and 3 smaller power boats and were through by 9:45. We continued on to Lower Brewers and were through by 10:30. Enroute to the Kingston Mills flight, 2 of the smaller boats that we had locked with passed us and the houseboat at full speed creating a huge wake which almost swamped us. Not very respectful of the safety of fellow boaters!! We made it through the flight by 1:30, there was some military exercises going on by the locks.
We made the 2:00 opening of the Kingston Lasalle Causeway and continued on to the Trident Yacht club. After tying up at 3:30 we had a goodbye drink with our crew mates Brian and Muriel, as they were leaving to go back to Bancroft. 
this was the first time that I had met Brian’s sister. I learned the difference between Pink and Blue roles from her, while Mike BBQ’d. We had a great evening up in the clubhouse and Brenda and Rob, who we had previously met at Trident joined us for dessert.
We left the wall around 9 am and continued down the canal towards Merrickville, we arrived there at about 10 and tied up on the blue wall. Andy talked to the lock master and told him that we wanted to walk around town
So once again we did 7 locks and traveled a total of 14.1 miles. We are now just 39.8 miles from Ottawa.
We arrived at the Hartwell lock, and stayed near the top, until about 4:00, as we wanted to stay on the blue dock at the bottom for the night, and this was only possible if we were there last. Across the canal was this weed wacker.
So a day with 7 locks and 26 miles. We are now only 4.2 miles from downtown Ottawa.
Saw this sign and had to add it to the blog. My husband wants to move to Ottawa now, because of the boating opportunities here.
Here’s the view of the boat from the Laurier bridge.
Cruising ON BUSINESS 