Trent Canal to Orillia

We were up at 6 am Friday morning because we had a long way to go, not to mention that the Trent Canal is only 40 feet wide and 6 feet deep!  Cheers is 17 feet wide and takes 5 feet of depth!  You don't want to have to pass another boat coming from the other direction.  Before entering the canal, boaters are instructed to call out on the radio advising you are entering so that others are warned.  

The Kirkfield Lift Lock was our 1st of 6 locks today.  This lock is similar to the Peterborough Lift Lock, but only one of the tubs was in operation.  Here we are headed in!  

In the tub and headed down!

Leaving the lock.

After the lock, we continued to work our way through the Trent Canal.....could it get any tighter?

Headed through the "Hole in the Wall".

No too much later we made it to Lake Simcoe.  Back to open water!  Lake Simcoe is much like Lake Erie, big and shallow.  Luckily, there was only 2 to 3 foot chop....but we did pick up more weeds and had to stop and blow them out.  Nothing major.

About 6 pm we made to to Orillia.  

We stayed 3 nights in Orillia.  The marina was beautiful, right inside town, which also had a wonderful park.  We used these 3 days to explore the area, get provisions, do laundry and get the boat ready for the 2nd half of the Trent Canal.  

Roxie waiting for me to come back to the boat.  Who knows how long she had been standing there!  Lol!  She doesn't look happy!

Canada is currently under a open file ban.  Which makes sense!  Although we had planned on using charcoal for grilling, we needed an alternate plan.  We needed to get a gas grill for using in Georgian Bay and the North Channel.  So....the closest place to get a grill was at Canadian Tire, which is much like Menards.  They have everything!  The store was 2 miles away...mostly uphill.  We rode our bikes and found the smallest grill we could find.  It was butane, heavy duty and came in a carry case!  Now how do we get it back?  Well, leave it to Bill to strap anything to his bike!  We got the grill back to the boat without incident.  Thank god most of the ride back was downhill!

During our stay in Orillia the area was celebrating their annual Kawartha Music Festival.  This was not a free event unfortunately and the tickets were sold out.   We rode our bikes over to check it out anyway.  It was like a mini Woodstock!  There were fields and woods with tents set up in the mud all over the place!  There was even a section of nothing but VW Vans!  We didn't think there were that many of them left!