Merrickville, Ontario

Upon leaving the Ottawa Lock Wall on Sat., July 14, we had to wait for the Pretoria Ave. bridge to open. Unlike any other bridge that we’ve seen so far in Canada, on this one the entire span of the bridge rises up vertically. We followed Bucket List in line waiting 30 minutes by the lock wall for the bridge to open.  

We would be traveling on the Rideau Canal Waterwayfor the next couple of days which has a total of 49 locks for us to go through.  We had already gone through the first eight when we did the staircase locks coming into Ottawa.  Within 6 miles we had come upon our first set of twin locks and we were lucky because just our two boats went through together very smoothly.

It was a stunning day, sunny and warm but not hot.  The Rideau is absolutely beautiful.  It’s a winding waterway that alternates pastoral vistas with pretty homes lining the banks.  There are lots of weeping willow trees that remind Lynn of the backyard of her childhood home.

We passed Mooney Beach where there must have been hundreds of people participating in what looked like all kinds of sports competitions.  On the water there were scores of kayak type races going on. It was quite the lively scene!

We proceeded through another seven locks.  It seemed like we were the only cruisers on the waterway until we went through the Burritt’s Rapids Lock where we were joined by two canoeists and a small motorboat. 

We planned to stay at the lock wall just above the next set of locks.  The lock tenders are very helpful and chatty.  They checked to see if there was room for us at our preferred stop but the lock wall was already full so apparently there were several other cruisers out on this glorious day.  

Towards the end of our journey after going through a swing bridge, we saw this interesting vehicle.

We opted to stay at the Lower Nicholson’s lock wall which turned out to be a beautiful pristine setting.  Lush parkland surrounded us and the waters were very calm except those next to the nearby falls!

We each went for a walk after dinner - Jonny’s being much longer than Lynn’s.  He was fascinated by the mechanical workings of the locks here.

The only activity around us were a couple of sets of people fishing, two cousins who had just reconnected at a family reunion that day and a nice family with two little ones who were very excited about catching tadpoles and fireflies.  This is one of the quietest and loveliest natural setting we have stayed at in a while.