The water
Twenty-six kilometres of old trade river, four working locks and one stretch of
canal that the map still calls a short cut. The current is with you on the first
day and against you on the third, which is the whole reason the trip runs in this
direction and not the other.
The boats
Open canoes, two to a boat, with a third of the load in the middle. They are heavy
and they are forgiving, and they will not tip because you turned to look at
something. We carry them around the one lock that will not take us.
The nights
Two nights ashore, both on working farms that have let boats land for longer than
we have been running this. Beds, not tents. Dinner is whatever the farm had too
much of that week, and breakfast is at six because the locks open at seven.