TRENT LOCK (#5)

Had a lovely, quiet night at Healey Falls Lock. When we went over to the lock station in the morning before the lock attendants arrived, we noticed that there was no electricity in the washrooms. This lock, unlike many others, requires electricity to operate. Some of the older ones are completely manual, giving the lock attendants a good workout as they open and close the gates, but this one would not be at all operational without electricity. Around 9 AM, when the locks are scheduled to open, no one was around, so we walked up to the nearby lock to see what was up. That lock, only about a half mile away, had full power, but ours had none. We finally got word that a fuse on the power pole had blown (most likely due to curiosity which killed not the cat, but a raccoon or squirrel), and they had to wait for a workman to come and reset the fuse.

With the delayed start, we got through lock #15 a little after 10 AM, and had another day of multiple locks spaced, for the most part, a mile or so apart. This is just far apart to make preparing and eating lunch somewhat difficult. Elaine made sandwiches between one set of locks and we wolfed them down between another set.

Later in the afternoon, the locks were spaced out more, about 7 miles or so, so things were a bit less hectic. We thought we would overnight at lock #6, Frankford, but got there a bit earlier than planned so went on to the next lock, #5, Trent.

Old Lockmaster house

It has one of the older Lockmaster houses as its station, with the public washrooms inside the house. There are only a few of these original houses left, as they were built in the early 1900s and provided a place to live for the person who had to be available to run the lock. We, of course, got a key to the house as the lock attendants left for the night, and not only did they tell us they’s leave the porch light on for us, they said they had a couple of tomato plants and for us to help ourselves.

Fresh tomato, compliments of the lock attendants

We have contacted friends who live nearby in Belleville, to see if we could visit as we passed through, but they are taking their boat over to Kingston for a jazz festival this weekend. A quick email to the marina in Kingston got us a reservation for a slip Friday and Saturday nights, so that is our short-term goal; get to Kingston by Friday. It’s only about 50 miles away, so it might work out for a short day tomorrow to Bellville, do a little laundry and a few maintenance chores, then off to Kingston on Friday…