Our summer vacation 2009: Peterborough lift lock

Once we got to the locks leading to the Peterborough lock we found that they were hand-crank locks. Interesting that there were younger people working them. On the way back Jonah and I asked if we could get out and crank them. The women at the Sawer lock let us do that to open the lock. We had a race; Jonah won. :(We reached our final destination at the Peterborough lift lock on Wednesday. This is the world's highest hydraulic lift lock using gravity and no other source of power. You can read more about the lock here.
We started out on the high side; these pictures were taken on the way down. For all but the picture of Sarah, I was on the top of the boat.
I also took a video.
After we docked just on the other side of the lift lock, we got out and walked into the city of Peterborough. We walked to what would be the left side of the picture 2 images above. There is actually a road that goes through the lock at the level of the window you see in the lock wall. If you look hard you can see the road on the left side between the trees. This next picture was taken once we climbed the hill to the road. Keep in mind when you look at this picture that there is water up there! The lift lock reminds me of two gigantic bathtubs full of water and we were the little play boat in the water.
One last video of the lift lock taken from the ground. It's a pretty incredible work of engineering.