Another Overnight at Burleigh Falls Lock 28, Upper Level
44°33’32.3388″N, 78°12’31.0212″W
What3Words: ///unselfish.hothouse.person

Catherine writes:

We were off to a slow start this morning doing a few chores. My friend Joanne found out that the Burleigh Falls Inn was closed for a private function so she recommended we go to the Lovesick Lake Restaurant instead.

We looked the restaurant’s location up on Google Maps which indicated it would be a half hour walk. But we could see on the map that there was a short cut across the parking lot to the highway and then a 5-minute walk across the bridge to the restaurant.

Burleigh Falls Area Perspective – Google Maps – click anywhere on the image to enlarge

We chose the right day to go there because they were closing for the season the next day. It was a homey and cozy place with delicious food and excellent customer service.

The rapids below Burleigh Falls Dam across the road from the Lovesick Lake Restaurant – click anywhere on the image to enlarge

Joanne and Randy met us at the restaurant and we had a lovely catchup over lunch. We told them about some of our recent boating adventures, including the Nutty Bean Café in Lakefield. Joanne said that the café was actually the home of earlier ancestors of hers – the Sherins – who owned that building and a few other properties on the same street. I had commented on the wonderful front porch on that building and wondered what life would have been like for the people who lived there – small world!

Joanne and Randy invited us to come and spend the afternoon with them at their home on Stoney Lake which we readily accepted. After a couple of short stops for supplies, we arrived at their lovely home on the water, steeped in family history and beautifully landscaped. We enjoyed a peaceful afternoon on their dock drinking wine and sharing stories.

At Joanne and Randy’s on Stoney Lake

One of the nicest afternoons that we have had this summer. Their place on Stoney Lake looks across the water to Hells Gate passage that we had gone through the day before on our way to Burleigh Falls lock.

Looking towards Hell’s Gate on Stoney Lake – click anywhere on the image to enlarge

They drove us back to the lock and we had decided to stay there for another night. Tomorrow we will go through the last two locks – Lovesick Lake and Buckhorn and will arrive at Buckhorn Yacht Harbour Marina in the early afternoon. Then our boating adventure for this summer comes to an end and the packing up begins!

Bye for now

Overnight at Burleigh Falls Lock 28, Upper Level
44°33’32.3388″N, 78°12’31.0212″W
What3Words: ///unselfish.hothouse.person

Catherine writes:

We were surprised when we woke up to find there were six other boats moored at Lakefield Lock with us. When we arrived the other day we were the only ones on the mooring wall for several hours. Wally asked the lock staff if we could stay another night but the limit was two nights in this location so we would have to move on.

It was a lovely morning, not nearly as cold as it has been and we did not need the heater in the boat. We walked over the bridge into town to go to the Nutty Bean Café where they made a fabulous latte, scone and smoked salmon on a bagel. Wish we could find something like this at home!

The Nutty Bean Cafe in Lakefield – great atmosphere, coffee and eats – wish we had something like this in London

Osprey hunting near our mooring in Lakefield

I took Wally on the longer route home by some historic houses tucked away on small streets near the lock that I thought he would enjoy seeing.

Beautiful heritage house in Lakefield near our mooring

We left the lock at 11:00 am headed for Young’s Point, where we arrived at 12:30 noon. There wasn’t much area to tie up in, and since it was such a beautiful day, we decided to carry on to Burleigh Falls.

Gulls hanging out en route to Young’s Point

From Young’s Point, a sharp turn to starboard brought us into Clear Lake where the landscape opened up. Wally could run the engines at a higher speed for several kilometers with the shoreline on each side well away from us so the wake we were generating was not a problem. I noted that the charts indicated that this area is also still called the Otonabee River!

Parks Canada staff maintaining navigation markers – thank you!

The landscape changed back to Canadian Shield again through stunning rocky outcrops and small islands, many with cottages on them. Passing into Stoney Lake was challenging for its narrow openings and convoluted channels around the islands and rocks. The channel is very well marked, and we made it through the ominous sounding “Hell’s Gate” passage with no problem.

We arrived at Burleigh Falls Lock 28 around 1:00 pm and decided to lock through. This was a huge lock, with a lift of 24 feet. Originally it was a double lock 28 and 29 but was turned into a single in 1968 so there is no more Lock 29.

View from Burleigh Falls lock lower level mooring wall

Waiting our turn to enter the lock at Burleigh Falls

We were able to find a prime mooring spot on the upper lock wall beside the beautiful granite shoreline. Wally watched the boats come through the lock – one houseboat had a hot tub on top of it!

Hot-tub houseboat – I wonder if I could get a hot tub on Belisama 🙂

Later in the afternoon the Kawartha Voyageur came through the lock again, heading west like us.

Kawartha Voyageur preparing to exit Burleigh Falls lock – bow nose stays up until the lock gates are fully opened!

We also saw another water snake with its head poking up above the water surface in the lock channel. Any thoughts I had of swimming here were abandoned even though I know he/she would likely skedaddle once it saw me.

Water snake casually swims past Belisama

I worked on making templates for the front window coverings using an old sheet. With Wally’s help and a lot of painter’s tape, I’ve got these finished so I can use them to make the real things in the winter.

Wally ran the generator for about an hour so we could cook some pasta for supper. We talked about whether to stay here or go to Lovesick Lock tomorrow. Plans were made to meet with our friends Joanne and Randy for lunch so looking forward to seeing them again.

Sue and Peter have very generously offered to drive us to Orillia to get the car on Monday. The plan originally was to get a ride to Peterborough to rent a car, but their kind offer will make our lives so much easier. We want to get to Buckhorn Yacht Harbour on Sunday to get a start of unloading the boat in preparation for going home.

Bye for now!

Overnight at Harris Boat Works, Rice Lake
44°7’20.5392″N, 78°14’28.3092″W
What3Words : ///deprives.exempt.mandate

Catherine writes:

We were up early with the alarm. Wally wanted to watch the F1 Race from Monza Italy so the alarm went off at 6:30 am. He then discovered that the race was at 9:00 am not 7:00 am. We were already up so we decided to check out the Nook Cafe in Hastings, reported to be the coolest coffee shop in town, in fact it’s the only coffee shop in town with fresh ground beans. Its a tiny place with vinyl records, antiques, arts and crafts, a lounge area – super friendly people and excellent coffee.

The Nook Cafe in Hastings – a very friendly place and well worth the short walk from Lock 18 – photo copied from their website

This was clearly a popular spot with the locals. Wish we had something like this in our neighbourhood. We asked a patron of the café if he knew anything about the history of the water tower and brick chimney that are highly recognizable landmarks for the area. He told us they were remnants of an old tannery and that the area is slowly being redeveloped with new condos and apartments.

It started to rain on the short walk back to the boat. The forecast was for a 20% chance of rain – guess it should be updated to be more like 100% chance so our 9:00 am departure was delayed until the rain stopped.

We had a reservation at Harris Boat Works again and we anticipated a 3 – 3-1/2 hour trip across Rice Lake based on our slowest travelling speed of 10 kmh. The skies finally cleared at 10:30. We entered the lock, rose up 9 feet and waited a few moments for the swing bridge at the top of the lock to open before we could be on our way.

At the far end of town there was a very narrow channel through an abandoned railway swing bridge that is now in a permanently opened position. Once we were through the narrow channel the river widened out to the upper end of Rice Lake. It was sunny now but very windy so we bundled up to keep warm on the open flybridge.

The narrow gap through the old railway bridge

Now that we are heading “upstream” we must often remind ourselves that the critical navigation rule now is “red right return” – the red navigation markers are now always on our right (starboard side) and the green ones on our left (port side). It’s the opposite going downstream. There is a little reminder device at each helm station that can be flipped around when that change happens. Very clever – whoever came up with that – but you have to remember to make the change when needed or it could be very dangerous!

On this part of our journey it is set to “Red Right Return”!

We have both noticed that we find the navigation markers are getting easier to spot after having over a month of practice looking into the distance. It’s often hard to tell what colour the markers are especially in bright sun, but the red ones have a pointed top and the green ones are flat topped. This shape is sometimes visible when the colours are not. Wally says this is yet another advantage of boating, improving distance vision.

Once we were on open water and far enough from the shore with no chance of a large wake making it to the shore Wally wanted to do some wide open throttle (WOT) tests to gather more boat performance information for John at Kawartha Propeller who is going to help us get our propeller setup optimized for constant travelling at slower speeds. Our hair blew back and the boat lifted out of the water – get out the water skies (not quite). The engines ran smoothly with no vibrations. Wally kept a close eye on the gauges and all was well. I took pictures of the gauges at various speeds for him to show the mechanics later on. Up until now we have mostly been poking along at 10 kmh, now the boat was travelling at 30 kmh – what a difference!

Port engine is a few hundred RPM slower than the Starboard engine at just under 30 kmh. Some attention also needed there. Note the bright red high tech timepiece we have added to the instrument panel. No expense spared!

As the lake narrowed, we kept an eye out for markers that would indicate where the sunken railway bridge was. We had passed over it when we were heading towards Hastings several days ago but at that time we were not aware of the threat that it posed if  you strayed outside of the navigation channel.

The sunken bridge showed up on the chart as a series of circles which mark underwater hazards. The night before we watched some drone video footage of the bridge on YouTube and checked out a few websites with useful information about the area.

Another reason we were so conscious of this hazard is that we had seen a beautiful 55’ Grand Banks yacht from the US on jack stands at Buckhorn Yacht Harbour when we were there a few weeks ago. One of the propellers and transmissions on that boat had been destroyed from hitting the sunken railway bridge on Rice Lake because they were traveling outside of the markers.

Apparently, the boat continued with one engine heading to Kawartha Propeller at Buckhorn for repairs when they hit another obstruction, likely a rock, near Young’s Point. That destroyed the other propeller and transmission so then they had to be towed the rest of the way to Buckhorn. From there the owners went home, a sad end to their journey – at least for this boating season. We were told that repairs to that boat will cost well over $100,000 – more than twice what we paid for Belisama. So, Wally keeps telling me that we indeed got a bargain.

The lockmaster at Hastings said that the bridge was well marked on the charts and as long as we paid close attention and stayed within the red and green markers there was no excuse for hitting the obstruction.

The yellow line shows our track through the hazard area when we were traveling from Hastings to Harris Boat Works on September 7. Note the depth numbers all around the bridge – “13” is that a strange coincidence?

As we approached the obstruction, we could clearly see the navigation markers but it was still a bit deceiving because there was so much open water on each side of these markers. Local boaters in small boats especially fishermen, who know the area well can zip over the top of the bridge without any problems but anyone with more than two feet of draft and in the wrong place could be in big trouble.

The sunken railway bridge is a remnant of the Cobourg and Peterborough Railway. It was a trestle bridge built in the 1850’s with a span of 5 kilometers, one of the longest railway bridges in North America at the time. Unfortunately, its wooden structure was no match for the thick winter ice on Rice Lake, and it disintegrated within a few years of operation.

The old railway bridge before it sank – archive photo copied from “Hiking the GTA” blog site.

The author of the blog site “Hiking the GTA” has written an excellent history of the bridge and the disaster associated with it. Follow this link to the blog site to read more – well worth your time if you are a railway and history buff: Rice Lake’s Sunken Railway | Hiking the GTA

Since Rice Lake is very shallow, 12 – 20 feet generally, in places the remains of the bridge are only 2 feet below the surface and apparently can easily be seen on a calm day.

We made it through unscathed – yeah!

Harris Boat Works had a space for us in the same slip we were on a few weeks ago. The wind was gusting strongly when we arrived and determined to keep us off the dock which was the only place we could tie up. We had to call the marina office for help. They sent a strong handsome young man who came to our rescue. We got tied to the dock just in time as it started to rain and the wind picked up. What is it about Rice Lake? It was like this last time we were here. Maybe the people at Harris ask – what is it about this boat? Every time they are here the wind gets stronger and it starts to rain!?!

There is shore power here so we had hot soup for lunch followed by a hot shower that felt very good! Wally watched the F1 replay so he was happy. I had a nap which made me happy and then had a long chat with my friend Anne who just got a new cat. So cute! Very tempting……

Full moon rising at Harris Boat Works, Rice Lake

Tomorrow we head to Peterborough.

Bye for now!

Overnight at lower level Hastings Lock 18
44°18’31.8528″N, 77°57’18.1332″W
What3Words: ///race.snorer.aftershave

Catherine writes:

We awoke to a brief rain shower. Thankfully it did not last long. Wally talked with John at Kawartha Propellers about tending to Belisama’s propellers when the boat comes out of the water. John warned us about a sunken railway bridge on Rice Lake that has given John a lot of business over the years and had been the demise of a boat we saw at Buckhorn Yacht Harbour when we were there a few weeks ago. We will be sure to look for this on the charts as we hadn’t heard about it until now and there were no incidents as we passed through Rice Lake several days ago.

We cast off from Lock 12 at 9:45 and traveled slowly through Campbellford, past the Giant Twoonie Park. It was hard to resist the pull of Dooher’s Bakery but we managed to hold out – at least for this time.

We arrived at Lock 13 on the outskirts of Campbellford to find the gates closed. We tied up on the blue line and Wally walked up to the lockmaster’s office where the Lockmaster was just finishing his breakfast which included bacon – sadly there wasn’t enough to share so Wally has put bacon on the grocery shopping list.

The Lockmaster told us to make sure our stern was tied tightly on the blue line as he had to empty the 23-foot-deep lock into the short channel where we were moored. The water rushed out, down to the end of channel and then back up on the opposite side, which would have caused Belisama’s stern to swing out wildly if it hadn’t been secured. Those lock staff know their business that’s for sure!

Soon the gates swung open on their hydraulic power and we tied up on the port side. When going up in a lock the lock staff will advise what side to tie up on depending on the style of lock and how many other boats are in the lock – we were alone today.

The Lockmaster also explained that there are two types of locks on the Trent Severn which we weren’t aware of before! There are “seaway” locks and “canal” locks. Seaway locks are deeper and they fill or empty from one side of the interior of the lock. Canal locks tend to be shallower and they fill or empty from the sluices in the gates at each end. We had Locks 13 – 17 to go through today which are all seaway locks.

It’s hard to believe that this system was once all manually run and through the winter as well – those men must have been really tough!  We had a very mild experience working the locks on the Trent-Mersey Canal in England and on the Charente River in France which was plenty hard enough for me – Wally not so much as he was piloting the boat.

This graphic of the Trent-Severn Waterway is posted at several of the locks. It shows the highlights of the system – click anywhere on the image to enlarge it.

After Lock 13 was full and the gates opened the lock staff drove down to Lock 14 to meet us there. They staff explained that the gardens are left to the discretion of the staff assigned to each lock, so we can tell where the green thumbed gardeners work. Lock 13 had a very cute row boat planter with flowers and veggies.

Repurposed row boat at “Lucky” Lock 13

Lock 14 also had a row boat planter and a trellis draped with morning glories made to look like a sail – very creative! But we didn’t get a photo of 14! Lock 15 also had beautiful gardens and hummingbird feeders.

About 500 meters on from Lock 15 were the massive step locks 16 and 17. As we approached they appeared to be even more intimidating going up than coming down. But it was a very gentle ride up in both locks.

Approaching Lock 16 – very intimidating size gates!

Inside lock 16 waiting to be lifted up to lock 17 – look waaayyy up to see the lockmaster!

After we passed through lock 17 we had over 20 kilometers of travelling along the river interspersed much wider spots in the river – almost small lakes in their own right – and also through multiple wetlands.

Looking back down the river from the top of Lock 17 – 74 feet below!

Nice little trailer park along the way – very well done – I could stay there if we didn’t have a boat

We could tell when we were getting close to Hastings as both sides of the riverbank had lots of cottages and then more homes as we entered the town. There also was the distinctive landmark of an old brick chimney and steel water tower from an abandoned factory just before we came to the lock.

Hastings Landmarks – I wonder what their “story” is – hey Copilot, tell me about the old brick chimney and water tower in Hastings

We tied up for an overnight stay on the grey line on the lower side of the lock – closest to bathrooms at the lock office.

Wally called his nephew Wayne and niece Cindy in response to earlier text messages. After that we called Wally’s son Steve and sang Happy Birthday to him and had a brief chat.

Happy Birthday Steve!

We won’t say exactly how old Steve is other than he will soon be qualified for early senior’s discounts (starting at 55) although he doesn’t look a day over 40!

Tomorrow we go across the length of Rice Lake to the marina at Harris Boat Works where we will spend the next night.

Bye for now!

Another overnight at Upper Level Lock 6 Frankford
44°11’53.8584″N, 77°35’28.3632″W
What3Words: ///plasmas.triangular.communities

Catherine writes:

Although we don’t travel too far in a day, it is very refreshing to have a morning or two where we don’t have to get organized to get underway when the locks open. The weather was spectacular, and we were glad to be spending another day here. We will likely spend the next night here as well as rain is predicated for Thursday.

We both worked on the blog and will be glad to be caught up. At noon we walked across the bridge to the Old Bank Café in Frankford for lunch. What a charming spot! It actually is the old Molson Bank, converted into a beautiful café with an amazing outdoor patio. They even have turned the old vault into a seating area! No bags of money laying around though. It’s a great spot that we will return to tomorrow for special coffee, once the chores are done.

On the patio at the Old Bank Cafe in Frankford – what a treat!

With the fantastic weather holding, I unrolled the bolt of white vinyl I had brought with us onto a picnic table. Wally keeps coming up with new projects for me to do – Honey, can you sew this or that? Would that be too hard to do? His understanding of sewing is equivalent to my understanding of diesel engines! But with my 50-year-old Omega sewing machine that must weigh about 50 pounds, and a walking foot for thick fabric, nothing can stand in my way (sorta kinda)….except being without shore power……it’s not a treadle machine…..

Catherine working on the window coverings under the massive willow tree – definitely a “pink job” workspace area!

He’s asked for a vinyl cover for the front hatch to keep the rain off which will work better than the Sunbrella. I measured twice, cut once and used masking tape to set it in place so I think it will work.

Then I took out the bolt of Sunbrella and measured to try again (fingers crossed) to make two more covers for the smaller back windows. Masking tape was employed again to hold the fabric down in the wind, while I brushed off ants and spiders that dropped from the willow tree.

Wally came out to help me wrestle with the bolt of fabric and promptly spilled his Marguerita on the end of the picnic table, onto the Sunbrella. I’m happy to report no damage was done. The fabric is very waterproof as well as tequila proof.

Another view of the willow – it is so big that we cannot join our hands around its massive trunk

Around 5:00 pm we looked up the river to see once again the Kawartha Voyageur coming our way! Where would she park?!? We were not keen to give up our mooring spot by the willow tree! Wally went up to check things out as the lock staff were still around. The cruise ship went right into the lock well after closing time. He found out that this was a special service by Parks Canada staff. He talked to staff aboard the ship while they were locking down. The Kawartha Voyageur sold out every trip this season and are already starting to sell out cruises for the 2026 season. It is so great to see this company doing this well. It’s wonderful for Canadian business and tourism in Ontario.

Surprise visit by the Kawartha Voyageur – only a few locks on the system can handle the ship with its bow “nose” in the travelling position while going up or down while inside the lock – a treat for the passengers

The cruise ship was going to stay overnight inside Lock 5 with the lock full. From there the patrons were going to be bused to Trenton to go to the RCAF Museum. The boat would then be carrying on to Kingston. The original schedule was to pick up passengers in Kingston and continue onto the Rideau Canal system. However, water levels in the Rideau Canal are too low this time of year to guarantee enough depth for this huge ship because of lack of rain. So they plan to turn around in Kingston and come back to the Trent Severn for the next few weeks. Maybe we will see them again! They keep popping up wherever we go!

We had a late supper. Wally helped his Afghan students back in London get started in their school years via video calls. It’s an exciting and stressful time for them so he is glad to help out with the transition. We tucked in for the night with rain expected at 3:00 am. I’ll have to get that hatch cover done soon.

Bye for now!