Lakefield, ON

We left Peterborough a little late in the morning as the marina staff, supposed to arrive at 8 am, didn’t get in until 9 o’clock. We think someone had a good time yesterday celebrating Canada Day. 

It took a tedious five hours to get through 6 locks, a distance of about 8 miles. The first two locks we shared with a "Liftlock Tour" boat, which takes tourists from Peterborough up just passed the Lift Lock and back.

 

To our surprise, this group in the canoes and kayaks are all seniors on an outing with their paddling club.

The highlight was the big Peterborough lift lock. This lock consists of two large pans. You drive the boat into the low one, the lockmaster adds about a foot of water to the upper one, and the entire pan, boats inside, are lifted up. Very high up. The view from the top is spectacular, if a bit unnerving.

We parked for the night on the wall at lock 26, Lakefield. It seemed a bit isolated at first.

 

 

Shortly after tying up, what looked like a building passed by the window. It was a cruise ship, Kawartha Voyageur, on a five day cruise from Big Chute to Peterborough. It too parked on the wall for the night.  The next morning, when it was time for it to lock through, it folded up the bow so the boat would fit. The top shade and pilothouse also fold down to get under some of the bridges.

Lakefield is a cute little tourist town, with the usual tshotshke stores. That said, it still had the bank, food store, library, pharmacy, hardware, and so forth right in the town.