Hastings, ON, CA
Beautiful brilliant blue skies, white clouds, much less humidity that the past couple of days, but some wind. It turned into a long day transiting from Campbellford to Hastings even though it’s only about 18 miles. The NEBO summary says we were underway about 2 ½ hours with 4 hours total duration. It seemed like a million miles and 80 hours… .
First we had to tie up and wait for an hour and a half at the first lock of the day. We got to Lock 13 right as they were letting two boats in and there was no more room. Most of the Trent Severn locks are not long enough for more than two bigger boats and we had no intention of rafting (tying up alongside another boat that is on the lock wall). So we waited.
Parks Canada has not yet fully staffed the locks (that happens June 19th) so the pair of lock keepers at Lock 13 also run Lock 14. Once the boats go up in 13 and leave the lock, the crew lets the water out of the lock then jumps in their car and drive about a mile to Lock 14 to raise the boats that just got raised in 13. Those boats then leave 14, the crew lets out the water and hustles back to 13 to open the gates, raise the waiting boats, rinse and repeat. Photo there of Will coming down the lock stairs after welcoming the lock keepers back from Lock 14.
Once we finally got going we shared the six locks of the day with a boat that was being delivered by a hired captain so it went just about as quickly as it would have been with one boat. The captain told us he travels this section of the Trent Severn about 10 times a summer. He knew all of the lock keepers names.
The big blue gates belong to Lock 17 and the photo was taken from Lock 16. This is another pair of locks where you go up 16, then the gates to 17 open and you go right up again. This pair of locks, along with Lock 15 which is only about 500 yards behind, route the boats around Healey Falls on the Trent River.
The environment is actually pretty along the 12 miles from Lock 17 to Lock 18 and there are some fairly nice houses and cottages along the narrow parts of the river. We were also contacted on NEBO by a couple who have completed the Great Loop and have a cottage on the river. They had a large gold AGLCA flag flying from their flag pole. You can barely see it in the photo below with the small lighthouse.
We stayed at Hastings Village Marina which is a nice little marina with very friendly and helpful people both on staff and on the boats. As we walked to the mandatory Kawartha ice cream stand, we spied some beautiful water iris tucked into the corner of the dock.
We’re still repeating much of our trip from last summer so please look here for more pictures of this section and the sights around Hastings Village Marina.
