Champ III: Going Places

The adventure starts here.

Old Mill Park, Campbellford Ontario to Hastings Village Marina, Hastings Ontario

Not a long travel day and the weather was pretty good.  We were traveling with a catamaran from Stamford Connecticut and a sailboat from the Rideau Canal Area in Quebec.  Both of these boats had their masts removed to clear the bridges along the canal.  The sailboat shipped theirs to Georgian Bay and the catamaran has theirs stored on deck.

The day was sunny and hot again.  The locks were not bad and there was a good breeze until they closed the lock doors.  There is no traffic on the canal.  We have passed maybe 2 boats moving south on the Trent Severn.  Things should pick up this weekend because July 1 is Canada Day, a Canadian Holiday.

I had not thought of the holiday and that was potentially an issue with where we wanted to stay.  When we were in Campbellford, Blue Skies ( a trawler from Connecticut)mentioned they called Peterborough and they were full and could not take them.  Peterborough was one of the stops I had planned so I thought that was out. I called Peterborough to ask but figured I would be out of luck.  They told me they were full but took my name.  I then called Lakeview and they said they were doing some juggling and may be able to take us and they would call back.  I had a call from Peterborough about an hour later and we got a slip for the entire weekend.  what a great break.

Hastings Ontario is a small village with a traffic signal.  There are several restaurants and we went to one next to the marina called Banjo’s.  They had sandwiches and entrees.  The food was good and they had a 3 berry bread pudding that was really good.  We did go to dinner with a couple off Daddy’s Home.  It is a 30′ Bayliner express cruiser and Kevin and Karen are a lot of fun.  They are from the Ottawa on summer vacation.  Lots of good talk and stories swapped.

The marina is right above the dam so there is a pretty good current thru the marina.  It has 3 main docks sticking out into the river with finger slips on either side.  We were on the T head of the middle dock.  There are mostly small cruisers at this marina.  They have the river area above the lock and Rice Lake and they can take trips south thru the lock. There was quite a unique houseboat that came into the marina in the late afternoon.  I took a couple of pictures of it.

We were going to stay 2 nights but decided we would check the weather because there is rain in the forecasts and we might as well travel on the better of the next 2 days.  As it turned out the weather the next morning indicted we should travel.