Day 147 - It's Lonely Out Here

Another boat pulled up behind us around 9:00 am.  The owners were from New Zealand and were making their way east and south through the Trent.  We were happy to see them.  We spent the morning walking around Campbellford, over the bridge to the Heritage Museum and the World’s Finest Chocolate Outlet Store.  Campbellford became a village in 1876 and a town in 1906.  It was a mill town and a cloth mill stood where Old Mill Park is.  The museum is housed in a residence and barn building with pictures and artifacts donated by local families.  One was a large model train set.  Most of the items were household, farming or sporting goods.  The chocolate store is next to Blommer’s Chocolate factory and we easily filled a bag with treats.  There is a giant replica of a "twoony", the Canadian $2 coin, in the park.  The man that designed it was from here. 

 

 

We pulled out at 12:15 pm.  It was cool and breezy with a high temperature of only 73.  Before we left the town, we passed some type of memorial.  The first 5 locks were close together.  We were in Lock 13 by 12:28 pm and out of Lock 17 by 2:30 pm.  We had to make 3 fender switches from port to starboard as the lockmasters wanted us on different sides of the locks.  Lock 16 and 17 were flight locks. 

 

Seymour Lake gave us a break from locks.  It was lined with fishing cottages and small resorts.  The channel wound around a few islands, with the larger Slaughter Island to our port and Hardy Island to the starboard.  The cottages grew larger as we got close to the town of Trent River, marked by Highway Bridge 30, another First World War Memorial and a small dock.  The lake flowed into the Trent River which took us to Hastings.  The river was lined with more cottages and farmland behind them.  Although it is still August, the trees are on the verge of changing color, some already have tinges of yellow and red.  Other than a few small fishing boats, we did not see any others all day.  We went through all the locks by ourselves.  It was feeling kind of lonely out there!

 



 

 

 



 



We reached Lock 18 at 4:30 pm and were out by 4:45 pm.  In another 5 minutes we tied up at the Hastings Village Marina.  At this point, we were only 50 miles from the start, but ran most of it at idle speed, which did not make the Captain happy.  As we walked up to check in, we saw the boat Easy Money, from Fairbanks, Alaska pull in.  We first saw this boat in Trenton.  Apparently they left a 10:00 am and came the whole 50 miles in about 7 hours.  They must have gone twice as fast as we did – breaking some speed limits no doubt!  

 



Around 7:00 pm we walked over the bridge to town and ate at The Captain’s Table, a fish restaurant.  Fish and chips is the specialty.  Captain Randy had haddock, deep fried the traditional way, and I had grilled whitefish.  Dinners are served with fires and coleslaw.  There seems to be one of these in every town – at least so far.  Nothing fancy but good.  It was 8:00 pm and the town was shutting down.  We walked back over the bridge to our boat.