Lock 7 - Glen Ross

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 96 - July 5, 2017

Gateway to the Trent Severn Waterway!

After breakfast, we turned in our Trent Port Marina key-cards, cast off the lines, fueled up at the fuel dock, and pointed Daydream's bow north right under the "Gateway to the Trent-Severn Waterway" sign! We had decided that Campbellford, although only 31 miles away, was probably out of reach due to the 12 locks between Trenton and Campbellford. We picked the Upper Wall on Lock 7 as our destination. Although it was only 14 miles away, it would require transiting 7 locks, and leave us an easy run with only 5 locks to Campbellford the next day.

A detour here. Skipper Bob has a great recommendation for the Upper Lock Wall at Lock 7. Active Captain has only one review, and it is negative. We were almost put off by the negative review.  Lesson here, my children, never trust a single review on a crowd-sourced resource like Active Captain! If there are fifteen reviews and they are all negative, well, OK. Or all positive, ditto - you can probably trust it. But a single review is just one person's experience on one day. It turned out Skipper Bob's review was correct and the single Active Captain review was off by a mile. There are now two reviews on Active Captain, one negative and the other (mine) very positive.

All the conventional locks on the Trent-Severn have vertical cables, which are the easiest type for us. Patty drives and lays the boat alongside the cable, I snag it with the boat hook, and slip the lock line around it. We have pretty much perfected our technique for the cables. The Trent-Severn lock keepers seem evenly divided between male and female, and are mostly quite young. They are great, so friendly and helpful! Heads and shoulders above the lock keepers on the Erie - I mentioned that at one lock today, and they said they hear that a lot!

Anyway, we went through 7 locks, and found ourselves at the Upper Wall at Lock 7 around 1 p.m.  That was fine with us, we like short travel days and early arrivals! The Upper Wall is just past the swing bridge that opens whenever a boat exits Lock 7. Lock 7 is named the Glen Ross lock, and the road over the swing bridge is Glen Ross Road. The wall we tied to is on the port (left) side, which is a long low wall with cleats and a nice grassy area above it with a picnic table and trash cans. Right on the corner of Glen Ross Road and the Canal is Robert and Donna's Variety Store - great ice cream but don't look for a lot of "variety" in the rest of the store! The lock facilities, including a nice park with restrooms, is directly across Glen Ross Road, a short walk away. A few families were fishing and swimming at the lock wall, and a few other local boats stopped by to get ice cream at the store. In the afternoon, we went over for ice cream (cash only, Robert hates paying the credit card processing fees!). We had a wonderful peaceful afternoon, evening and night here. The lock attendants gave us the key to the restrooms for after hours access. This spot is aces by us!

Daydream at Lock 7

Lock 7 Sign

Lock 7 Park

Lock 7 Turnstyle

Lock 7 Chamber

Richard and Donna's Variety Store