A Day Trip

When our little boys had gone back home, and were off to school, Poppa decided we should go for a drive.  So....

....... we hopped in the car and headed north.  As you can see there were no fall colours yet.

We stopped at the marine railway just in time to see a boat entering the rail.  The marine railway is a structure like a huge railway car.  The boats drive into it while it is in the water....

............with the hopes of getting to the waterway on the other side of this gorge - which as you can see is quite a lot lower.  I took this photo from the bridge which traffic uses to cross the gorge.

Once the moving cart is full (or all the waiting boats are loaded), a powerful motorized pulley system starts raising the cart up and out of the water.

.The boats are directed in by staff so that when the cart rises out of the water, each boat is positioned in a sling which holds it in place while being transported across the road on a set of tracks - very like railroad tracks.  The captains and passengers in each boat get to stay in the boats, but as you can imagine - must remain seated at all times.

Once the cart is across the road, it begins the steep downward descent to the lake on the other side.  You can see the rails heading down the hill.

It actually moves surprisingly quickly for such a large vehicle...I had to almost run down all these steps to follow it!

Here it is at the top of the slope...

........ and this is where it will be travelling........

........... down to this level, where the rails once again enter the water .........

.......... where it slowly goes lower and lower........

..... until the boats can start their motors and drive out into the lake...

...... as you can see - there were quite a few of them - and other waiting to cross to the high side.

Some of the boats are fairly large.

Soon it was full again and began the journey up the hill again in the opposite direction.

Over the crest of the hill.....

....... across the road and once again, into the water....

....... and we watched the boats follow the channel to the lake on the high side of the gorge..........

....... I couldn't resist getting another picture - it's a long way to the bottom!  Anyway...........

.......... this time we headed south on the highway...........

........ and drove past Uncle Ernie's house on our way home....it didn't look like anybody was home.  It was an interesting and fun day - hope you enjoyed the tour!