Day 11 - Jeff

28km and reached Peterborough with ease.

Woke up and it was cloudy and windy, thought this might be our first day of rain, NOT! Clear, hot and sunny all day long and the wind was at our back the entire day, made for easy paddling and were a few points we were doing 10km/h with very little effort.

Stretch from Young's Point to Peterborough has 5 locks, we lucked out and didn't have to wait at any of them but did feel like a rally race at points, we locked with 2 houseboats and a 48 foot sundance (one of the nicest boats I've ever seen) at the first lock and they left for the next while we paddled 1-2 km to catch them, lock master waited for us and then we repeated the process for each lock thereafter.

We dubbed the guy driving the 48, "broker" as he must have mentioned 6 times, "just picked it up from my broker", "broker waiting in Peterborough", "broker, broker, broker etc" was a nice guy though, was afraid I was going to ding his boat and tried to keep away in the lock. Once he told us the 5 foot swim platform could be lowered into the water to fit a seadoo, I'm thinkin, how bout 2 kayaks. The two houseboats were a family on vacation for parents 40th. You get to know people when you are in locks with them all day.

Did see a few kayakers today finally and one was a gentleman Michael Gillespie, had a 17 foot wooden kayak built for fun by some guy in Caledon, a piece of art in my opinion, want one too, after the 48 foot that is, talked a bit about the trip and got his email.

Very few boats out today due to the Peterborough lift lock being down, nice not to contend with boaters for a change and the one we did see actually slowed down for us, deserved a thank you and a picture. Also meant that we couldn't go past Peterborough either and the camping situation at the top of the lock sucks, we decided to portage it.

Walked down to scope out the portage, found great spot but meant lugging all our stuff including kayaks 300-400m down below the lock, which is also 65 feet high and 96 step staircase, fun wow. On the way down we saw a lawn tractor with a trailer, hmmmm, Julie says "you know I'm asking to use that". On the way back up we meet Reggie and Julie throws him a smile and bats her eye lashes, "can you help us bring stuff down?". And so we have a lift for all the gear and Julie, Jeff however must carry the two kayaks down by himself, something just wrong here people. For all you red necks out there, god bless John Deere.

To top it all off, I just set the last kayak on the grass and hear the dreaded announcement. "Welcome to the Peterborough Lift Lock" what?! You said 10 minutes ago was out of commission until morning, oh well, was funny.

Did the 1k walk to Tim Hortons, got one for the morning which I will have to warm up seeing as Julie said she wasn't going in the morning this time because the hills are too big, me reminding her that they aren't as big as the hill I carried her kayak down while she rode the tractor, didn't seem to phase her.

Picked up subway for dinner and ice to cool the beer down, ate overlooking the river then went for a walk and did tourist pictures.

Tomorrow we do the Otonobee river and hope goat island is still inhabited, we also have a place to stay in Rice Lake as Julie's sister has a place in Harwood, means we don't have to marathon to Hastings, will still be a 40K day, our longest yet.