Campbellford to Hasting (June 25)

We pulled off the Campbellford city wall at 7:00 a.m. to be first in line for the first lock of the day, Lock #13.  If there are several boats ahead of you it could mean an hour or more wait for the lock to “re-cycle” back.  We tied up on the lock wall, had breakfast on our boats, and waited for the 9:00 lock opening – we were on our way!  Winds were low which made for easier locking.  We would lock through 6 locks today.

    

    

    

    

        

Locks #16 and #17 are tandem locks with beautiful falls.

    

We see lots of people fishing on the banks and under the bridges and once again “ice cream” is always a priority in this area!  Notice the large ice cream cone on the port-side bank – it is advertising an ice cream stop along the canal.

    

Our final lock before arriving at our destination was the Hastings Lock #18.  All of the locks are well maintained and adorned with colorful flowers of all varieties.  Some even have small herb and vegetable gardens.  Hastings had canoes filled with blooming flowers.

    

Hastings was a tiny place that only consisted of a grocery store, a post office, 4 restaurants and a lock.  Three of the restaurants were closed so we opted for the only one left, “The Captain’s Table”.  We had their specialty – fish and chips – and probably would have been as well off dining on the boat, although we did see some interesting characters there.  That is a fuzzy “Elmo” motorcycle helmet!

        

I read that you can walk the whole town in 20 minutes and that the lockmaster said we were welcome to help him roll in the sidewalks at six-thirty.  At the end of the day the river was calm and the sunset was beautiful.