Author Archives: Jill and Bud

Sorry about that title, I couldn’t help myself.

We came to Fundy National Park Friday and when the fog cleared I found that the campground overlooks the little town of Alma and its small harbor. This was just after high tide.

Four hours later the boats were left sitting on the bottom as the 35 to 40 foot tide receded (maximum tide here is 40 feet, but I think it is lower than that now).

It is a beautiful setting.

Yesterday morning we drove out to Point Wolfe and walked down to the inlet there. I took this photo from the high tide line looking out to the bay.

I was excited to see this foxglove growing by the trail until I looked it up and found it is an invasive species. I hate when that happens!

It was only a five mile drive but included this covered bridge.

In the afternoon we played golf on this 9 hole course that is part of the park. When I suggested this I assumed we would play nine holes. I should have known; Bud signed us up for 18.

This is hole one, what you can’t see is that below the drop off is a small section of fairway and then a creek. There were creeks on almost every fairway, and some had two!

This is another course designed by Stanley Thompson. He is the architect that designed the course we played at Waterton Lakes in Alberta. He is obviously not deterred by uneven terrain!

Besides beautiful views there was wildlife, mostly gophers. They were quite tame, I was not using telephoto to take this picture.

The gopher seemed interested in Bud’s tee shot.

For us the course was long and tiring. Did I mention the uneven terrain? (The planks are for those hearty souls pulling hand carts.)

Even the cart ride was more interesting than relaxing.

This may look like a pretty brook to you, but to me it was a ball eater. Besides the many water crossings,

the rough was, well, rough. We ended up skipping the second play on the last two holes, and even then we took almost 5 hours to play!

But then there were the views!

I get up really early and today while sipping my coffee I was looking for another hike for us to take. I found what sounded like a nice trail on Minister’s Island just under 40 miles from here. Investigating I found you need tickets to get on the island, but opening and closing times depend on the tides; you drive to the island at low tide.

When Bud got up I asked if he was interested. If so, we had to leave by about 7:35 as today’s tides had the island open from 8:30 until 11:15.

He was, so we threw ourselves together and took off. Here we are driving across the gravel part of Bar Road that crosses Passamaquoddy Bay. It was 8:23 AM. In the distance you can see other cars waiting at the entrance to the island.

The tide had just drained away. Some people were out there clamming.

We did find some nice paths to walk.

There were old stone fences…

and parts along old carriage roads. (The white blob in the road is Matey enjoying a roll in the soft grass.)

We glimpsed Chamcook Harbour through the trees.

I loved this part; two ruts filled with conifer needles worn through a roadway of moss. Soft!

Toward the end of our walk we passed this stone gate. This whole island is now a National Historic Site. It was the summer home of Sir William Van Horne and his family. Van Horne was the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

The estate operated as a self sufficient farm, but hardly an ordinary farm. This is the three story barn built in 1898.

Behind it was the ice house and creamery. The barn, with its iconic turreted silos was designed by an architect. The milk was cooled in the barn and then piped directly into the creamery.

Everything in the barn was state of the art and immaculate. This is the basement of the barn where the prize bulls were kept. Manure was removed by an overhead rail system and taken to the composting garden.

After touring the barn and hiking we got back in the truck and drove close to a mile to Covenhoven, the 50 room “cottage” built in 1891. You approach from the back.

The front of Covenhoven faces the sea.

Pretty nice view from the front porch.

There’s also a bathhouse…

with its own close-up view of the water.

To support the house were a windmill which pumped water from a well and a gas house where carbide gas was made to light the house.

Inside the carriage house they had one of the original carriages from the estate.

The inside of the house has been restored and has a lot of the family furnishings.

When the property was acquired by the government this pool table was the only thing left in the house.

All of the furnishings in this nursery, built for Van Horne’s grandson, are things that were here originally.

I guess this is dining casually if you were a Van Horne.

We definitely could have spent more time seeing this amazing island.

But time and tide waits for no man and the waters were rising as we drove back to the mainland at 11:23.

We drove into the nearby village of St. Andrews; very pretty but very congested. Before leaving we came back to Bar Road. At 12:07 the water was coming across the road. At high tide the water over the road will be 14 feet deep.

As they say in their promotional material, this is an island like no other!

On our morning walk Matey and I came across this bird, which seemed young and was just standing on the edge of the park road.

Then I spotted its parent nearby. We walked by on the other side of the road, I kept Matey on a short leash and neither bird moved. I think it was a fledgling and mother Merlin, Falco columbarius.

We headed out to St. John to play disc golf, but on the way we stopped at the narrows of the St. John River.

It’s a pretty big river, and if you watch this video clip you can see that the current is moving fast. But since this was close to high tide, and not far from the Bay of Fundy, the current is flowing up the river!

The rather interesting disc golf course was in a nearby park.

You would never guess…

from the paths between holes…

that the course was laid out around an athletic complex.

It was fun, but we couldn’t avoid all the mud!

I’ve enjoyed seeing the new growth on the trees.

Spruce…

and fir…

add new growth in an orderly way. But on the drive back I noticed the larches.

They add new growth with abandon and end up looking like they are flinging out their limbs with laughter. I like them the best.

Although there were and are a lot of other things we want to see and people we want to visit on this trip, the goal was to visit the Canadian Maritime Provinces.

And yesterday we crossed the border into New Brunswick and the Atlantic Time Zone. We are staying first at New River Beach Provincial Park along the Bay of Fundy. This place was recommended to us by a couple from New Brunswick that we met while touring a decommissioned oil rig in Morgan City, Louisiana.

I love our site. It’s quite secluded in a spruce and fir woods with a floor of moss.

The Bay of Fundy is famous for its tides. Yesterday afternoon Matey and I walked down to an overlook of the beach. We were within an hour of low tide.

Today, after a hike, I took another picture from the same overlook. The distant shore had disappeared into the fog, and the beach had disappeared into the tide. The tide here is about 18 feet.

Our hike was through very drippy woods. There were nice boardwalks, bridges and steps, but they were very slippery from the rain and fog.

The woods were wonderfully green. I loved the bright green of the new growth on the trees…

and the softer green of the ferns.

We were walking out a trail on the very rocky Barnaby Head.

We came out at a cove…

where we were able to walk down to the stony beach and onto the rocks. You could hear the stones tumbling with the waves. Beautiful!

When we came home Tuesday from our drive to Cadillac Mountain we went about four miles in stop and go traffic getting back across the only causeway to Mount Desert Island. There are two other sections of Acadia National Park. One is an island, but it costs $44.00 each to ride the ferry out there; that’s a lot of money to pay for a hike. The other is the Schoodic Peninsula, just northeast of Mount Desert Island.

I used my All Trails App to find what I hoped would be a nice hike on the peninsula. I chose a loop formed by three trails, Anvil Trail, Alder Trail and Schoodic Head Trail. We opted to hike it starting on the Anvil Trail, which is right to left on the elevation profile. As hiked, it was closer to three miles.

We started with a drive up Mountain Road to the trailhead.

The area at the top, at the start of the hike, had a lot of exposed granite. Notice the clear blue sky.

When we descended a bit the woods got higher and thicker.

There were still plenty of rocks!

On an eastern slope there were a lot of scraggly conifers with this air plant growing on the branches. It looked like Spanish Moss, but Spanish Moss is supposed to grow no further north than Virginia. I couldn’t find any references to what else this might be.

After a bit of hiking we came to the uphill side of the Anvil.

It was tall enough to warrant stone steps on the approach. At the top of these steps was a place where I had to lift Matey up before I could scramble up.

Then, of course, we had to come down the downhill side. That involved some scrambling down rocks.

This is looking back up at the final downhill scramble. Matey was off leash for this so he didn’t tug me down. He goes up and down stuff like this at full speed. I have to be a lot more careful!

At the end of the Anvil Trail we came out at the ocean. Where’s that blue sky now?

The Alder Trail was pretty level and a nice break.

Then it was back up over roots (these were all live roots), and as we got higher, stones and stone steps.

We emerged back in the sunshine and were treated to this view of Cadillac Mountain across Frenchman Bay.

It was a good hike, about all any of the three of us could comfortably do. Although there were not too many people on the trails, and the roads in and out had little traffic, when we drove down to Schoodic Point on our way out we were unable to stop because there were no open parking spots in the lot!

Sunday we came to Timberland Acres RV Park, 15 miles outside of Acadia National Park.

It’s a commercial park, so neighbors are close. It is well maintained and we have TV and internet.

There are a lot of seasonal campers here and many fix their sites up nicely.

Acadia National Park is another very popular park and a permit is required to drive up Cadillac Mountain. I got a permit for Monday morning.

Unfortunately we were fogged in, so this was the view from the summit.

There was beauty close up, this lovely shrub in boom.

So we drove back down and took a walk, instead. This is Hemlock Trail.

This is a hemlock along the trail.

Part of the trail is along an old railroad bed.

Together with Jessup Trail it made a loop around this meadow…

and through a wetland. It was a nice walk, and Matey can go on most of the trails here, so that’s good.

We continued to drive around the Loop Road and then west to another section of the park near Bass Harbor called the Seawall. Standing here you could hear commercial boats out on the water and you could hear a bell buoy clanging in the fog, but could see nothing but mist.

Close up there were wild irises in bloom.

Still further west we came to Pretty Marsh, where a lovely walk…

brought us to the water…

and finally a view.

Tuesday around noon things seemed to be clearing up. I checked online and there were driving permits left for Cadillac Mountain so I bought one for 3:30.

As we started to walk around the summit the mist cleared.

What a difference. This is the view Monday morning.

This is the same view Tuesday afternoon.

Folks were really enjoying the sun and the scenery.

That’s Bar Harbor down below. The close island on the left is Bar Island.

This is my favorite; for some reason those three little islands were wearing caps of fog.

Yesterday we started the day with a walk across US Route 1 to the other side of the park and the coast. Some rough stone steps led down to this shore. It’s beautiful, but not a place for a stroll. We did walk along the top of the bank on the nice path there.

Then we drove into Belfast Maine where we met our friend Barb who sells cut flowers, perennial plants and sometimes her pottery every Friday from April through October at the farmer’s market.

It was nice to sit and visit for a while. Bud took these pictures for me; Charlie wasn’t there yet.

This morning I walked Matey about two miles down from the top of Mount Battie, where Bud had dropped us off. There’s an overlook there, but it was so foggy I didn’t even bother to go out and look. It was a nice walk and I was glad Matey got a good workout as we then left him behind.

We drove into Thorndike to have lunch with Barb and Charlie at their place. Charlie is very allergic to dogs, so Matey couldn’t come. This is their house and some of Barb’s flower gardens. The cutting garden is across the road from the house, these flowers are just for them to enjoy.

They also have some fruit trees, blueberries and raspberries. That’s Charlie and Bud walking up from Charlie’s vegetable garden. Barb and I are on the deck they just had put on the log building Charlie built that has a sauna and a workshop. Barb also has her pottery workshop attached to the back of the house and two kilns, one in the the workshop and one in it’s own shed.

I had to take a picture of this beautiful lunch setting, complete with some of Barb’s stoneware and a big bouquet of Fireflower Garden flowers. We ate and talked and talked some more. Finally we thought we had better get back to Matey.

I made Barb and Charlie pose for this picture amid more of the flowers. It was pretty sunny then and quite warm. I was a little anxious to check on Matey because my temperature monitor wasn’t working. We left the air conditioner on in the trailer, but the power could go out.

I needn’t have worried. The coast was still completely overcast and the temperature there was only sixty nine degrees. I put a light sweatshirt on to sit out!

We’re moving on tomorrow; just sixty miles to a campground near Acadia National Park. We may be able to see Barb and Charlie again before we leave Maine. I would like that.

I added two more states to our camping map on the side of the camper, New Hampshire and now, Maine. I didn’t add Vermont because we drove through there, but didn’t camp.

We’re at Camden Hills State Park. We have a large shady site…

but it is not at all level. It was about 4 degrees tilted from side to side, and we had to lower the front of the camper almost to the ground.

We took a hike this morning. A lot of the hike was pretty steep. Sometimes it went up rock steps,

sometimes we were just walking up bare rocks.

We hiked up hill for over a mile and a half to the side of Mt. Megunticook.

We arrived at the Ocean Overlook. That’s the Atlantic out there.

It was quite a view, just a bit hazy, whether from smoke or humidity I’m not sure.

We were looking down on the village of Camden, Maine.

We continued the loop around which took us down across the boulders along the edge. I kept Matey on the leash, which made the scramble harder for me. We probably went about a quarter of a mile before we got back into the woods where I felt comfortable letting Matey loose. It was still very steep. When we got back to camp we had gone three and two thirds miles, all of it up or down. We were beat.

Yesterday it rained all day, so today I asked Bud if he’d like to walk with Matey and me on the nearby rails to trails path. I figured after the rain that would be a relatively dry place to walk.

It was,

but except for this bridge it wasn’t very interesting. So after three quarters of a mile we turned around and went back to try another trail.

This time we tried a trail up Crag Mountain. It started on this lane.

but the trail turned off and soon we were out in the woods.

After a mile and a quarter of pretty steady uphill hiking we arrived at the overlook. You’re looking at the White Mountains behind us and the Androscoggin River below. (Some fellow hikers took our picture after I’d taken theirs.)

Although the hike up was more tiring, the hike back down was more of a challenge, especially for Bud.

Water from the rain was still running down some steep sections of trail making footing difficult.

I took the time to admire the fungi…

and lichens, steadily at work turning logs and rocks to soil.

By the time he got to the bottom Bud’s legs were pretty tired. Altogether we had walked over 4 miles and up and down 650 feet. Today was no walk in the park, but it was beautiful.

Yesterday we went to Moose Brook State Park for a hike. On line it said admission was $5 a person for out of state residents, but when we got there the Park Manager said he was running the park on revenue from retail sales and wanted the park available for the people, so there was no charge unless you were camping.

We walked a two and a half mile loop along Perkins Brook. Some of it was on pretty narrow paths.

But they were easy to follow and had bridges where you really needed them.

In some places we followed an old CCC trail. Here you could see the work that had been done (probably by hand) to create a level road bed.

We walked up the south side of Perkins Brook then crossed this well made bridge…

over the very pretty brook and returned along the north side.

I enjoyed the stoney, bony old woods.

And for what we would have paid for admission I bought this nice t-shirt.