Trent Severn Waterway, Part 2.

Peterborough to Lovesick

A Better Plan

When staying in Peterborough we made a decision to re-plan our trip. Originally we were were going to travel the length of the waterway, the Georgian Bay, and The North Channel in time to get to Saute St. Marie, Michigan to catch an airplane to fly to our home town, Galena, IL. on July 28 for Mike's 40th class reunion. We realized that in the Waterway, we are always about 60-90 minutes from the Toronto airport. Switching our plans to leave and return through Toronto would give us a lot more time and let us take a much more leisurely pace. So, the next several days became our new, slower pace.

Peterborough Lift Lock and The Devil's Elbow

On July 17, we left Peterborough and proceeded to the the next lock. To our surprise, they brought in a tour boat right beside us with only inches to spare between our boats. The tour boat leaves from Peterborough and goes two locks though the Peterborough Lift Lock. It then turns around and goes back to Peterborough, about an hour trip. 

The Peterborough Lift Lock is an amazing engineering feat that actually lifts the boats, water, and container 65 ft in the air. There are two identical containers, each the size of about 4 Carousels. They are connected hydraulically so water pressure moves them and keeps them in balance.The top one is always a little heavier as they add a foot more water into that chamber. Through the hydraulic connection, the weight of the top one drives up the bottom one when they are released to move. The lock moves pretty fast. It is an amazing feeling to be sitting in a boat suspended 65 feet in the air! In the video below you can hear the narrative from the tour boat squished in beside us.

Try this if the video doesn't work.. VIDEO

Obstacles in the Devil's Elbow

The scenery just became better and better as we continued west. Also, the rocks characteristic of the Canadian Shelf began to appear more frequently. In one section, called the Devils Elbow, a zig-zag course runs through islands and rocks. The route was particularly confusing. In fact, Mike thought he missed a turn, reversed course, verified that the original course was correct, and then proceeded back though the obstacle course. We went thought the Devil's Elbow THREE TIMES!!! Luckily there is a small and thriving church on an island in the elbow; a fact that we will take note of and see if we can stop by on a Sunday on our next time in the area. There is a good anchorage just around the corner from the church.

Church in the bend of the Devil's Elbow

A quick lunch stop and then Douro, ON

At Youngs Point, we decided to stop for lunch after locking through. We
were actually pretty hungry, but after walking around the small town, the only place we found with food was the general store. While they did have some pre-made beef sandwiches (undated), that was not really what we had in mind for lunch. Finally, we crossed an old bridge to a B&B and restaurant that the Lockmaster told us was closed and found a fantastic lunch experience in the country side.

Carousel at Douro, ON Lock

Part of the fee that we had paid allowed us to "camp" at the lock walls over night. We hadn't really taken advantage of this but the weather had become much more moderate and the scenery was beautiful. For our first lock wall camp out, we picked Douro, ON. We picked that location simply because there was nothing there but a fire pit. No town, no stores, and, once the lock closes at 6pm, no people.

We had a wonderful night.

Lovesick

The scenery along the way just kept getting better and better, However, along with that came narrower channels and more challenging navigation. We were mostly steering from the lower station in these areas because we have better visibility and communications from there, and, when dealing with the locks, Mike and Deb can trade off steps of our well-oiled procedure.

The rocks seem to get bigger and closer as we go...

In this area, the lock staff started telling us about house boats that we would meet. We didn't really get the point a first but we soon found our that we were entering the land of rental houseboats. Apparently, with cash in hand, these boats can be rented with no boating experience and a 30 minute orientation.  One of our guide books is more subtle, saying "poor seamanship may be frequently observed in the area." Many of these guys are just plain dangerous so it is best to be on alert and give them plenty of room. We never did see anybody go down one of those slides.

We selected our next destination on the same grounds as the previous night; remote and a fire pit. The Lovesick Island lock is completely inaccessible by car - even the lock staff has to arrive by boat. We were docked in front of a 29 ft. Bayfield sailboat that is somewhat local (from Campbellford) and traveling the Waterway for the first time in their lives. Bayfield's are always interesting to us since our first sail boat was a Bayfield 25. 

While there is much but natural beauty at Lovesick there are also raccoons. Our Bayfield neighbor saw one staring in her galley window while she was making dinner! Later, when our campfire was about to go out, we saw three little ones casing the dock for opportunities. When Mike went over to confront them with his IPhone flash light in hand, they took their generous time in deciding to wander off. Over night they went aboard the Bayfield and another nearby runabout boat that carried a family of campers. No harm was done as the Bayfield had closed themselves up and the runabout had put all of their interesting items in the lock's restroom over night for safe keeping. The critters reportedly bit into a tube of anti-bacterial gel on the runabout and left it behind.

Boat Camping is quite popular on the waterway - we were amazed at the amount of gear the family of five had with them in their small 18 foot run-about boat (tent is to the right of us in this photo).

The next section had two towns that both sounded interesting, so with our new slower schedule and temperatures on the rise, we leisurely set off from Lovesick with only two locks between us and the first town, Bobcaygeon, where there would be electricity (which means air conditioning)!