Today is all about exploring Acadia National Park which we are staying right on the edge of. By this time of year the leaves have normally changed colour but unfortunately what with the hurricanes, unseasonably warm weather and the fact that the tree gods obviously knew we were coming there hasn’t been a lot of change, having said that one good thing is that the temperature has dropped a little so things should start looking up from here. There is a road that goes all the way round the park which we drove, interestingly yesterday we drove nearly 300 miles in about 9 hours, today we drove about 40 miles in a little over six hours! There are a number of scenic lookouts on the route and we pulled into each of them because we are on the tip of an island and the road goes all the way round the edge of the park you actually get fantastic views of all the little islands and the peninsula spurs that fill this part of the country. We are very close to Canada and the French tried hard to own this bit of land so a number of the islands and lookout points have french names, we even saw a sign for the town of Calais at one point yesterday. One of the stops is at a place walled Thunder Hole where a cave has been created by the tide, this fills up with air and as the waves come in and push the air out it sounds like thunder. Having timed it perfectly to arrive at high tide we then found out that the best time to visit is 2 hours before high tide so we only had a dull popping sound rather than thunder – oh well that does seem to be the norm for this trip that anything water based is destined to confound us! Further round we stopped at a ‘land bridge’ which I think was man made but has created a lake on one side and the outlet to the sea on the other, the pond was very still and the trees were reflected in the pond, there were parts of colour and actually the mix of green through to crimson looked really nice. At this point the 20% chance of rain became a realty and although it wasn’t heavy it did make the temperature drop a little further so we jumped back in the car and continued the drive round. We stopped at Jordan Pond house which is actually Jordan Pond and on the other side of the road a house that was built by the Vanderbilt’s as a summer cottage, this time he had asked the architects to blend it in with the surroundings which meant that you ended up with some mock Tudor looking house that is now used by the park staff. The rain had stopped by this time so we walked down to the ‘pond’ – I would call it a lake but that could just be another Anglo American thing. We stopped for our picnic lunch overlooking the islands then continued to the top of Cadillac Mountain which was quite a bit colder but gave fantastic views both of the islands and the hillsides, its such a shame we aren’t here for the full fall colour but we may see it somewhere else. We drove back down the mountain then went to our final stop which was called ‘the overlook’ again providing fantastic views this time of the lighthouse on egg island, so called because so many birds nest on it the locals used to collect the eggs from it. This is now closed to the public and is a nature reserve. It was then time to head back to the apartment to plan tomorrow before heading off into town to get something to eat.
