Exploring Down East Maine

I can’t help myself - I collect completely random useless information. In case you do too, here’s one for you that you might not know - ever since I started watching Murder She Wrote a looooooong time ago, I wondered why the area that looks kind of middle of Maine on a map is referred to as Down East Maine. It’s not “down” and most of Maine is “east”, and it’s just a weird appellation. Well, it turns out that in the olden times, ships sailing from Boston and New York to this area were sailing east AND down wind. So, Down East it became!

Based on our research, the best place to explore Down East is Mount Desert Island (MDI), which holds both Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park (which we were surprised to learn is the only US national park in the Northeast). We spent a lot of time hanging out in Bar Harbor and enjoyed quite a few hikes in Acadia.

Bar Harbor Village

Craig has developed a “rule” that the closer a restaurant is to the main touristy hangout area, the less likely it is to have good food, but it might have really great views while you eat your mediocre food (it’s not some amazing revelation or anything, just something we try to keep in mind when deciding where to eat 😜). That held true for Bar Harbor Village, which was also regularly overrun by cruise ship people on shore excursions. We did have a handful of great experiences there:

1. LIVE MUSIC - if I’ve spoken to you about our plans, you know that we are really excited about music festivals and having more time to listen to random live music. Until this week, we had not yet taken advantage of these opportunities. But, magically, we bumped into this sign on our second day Down East:

Ah hah! We returned at 2:15 and the place was hopping. We had no idea what to expect, but that afternoon there was a solo artist playing a very eclectic, but appropriate for us playlist - including Beatles, Pearl Jam, Oasis, and some original stuff that wasn’t bad. We then learned he was 16 (!), and noticed his dad was flitting around beaming with pride throughout the second set.

The audience was a fun mix of people of all ages, including babies, dogs and babies playing with dogs 😍. It was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

2. Breakfast - hidden down a narrow alleyway was “Cafe This Way” - at first you think the sign means, go this way to get to the cafe, but that’s the name! A good sign per Craig’s restaurant rule. The cafe serves breakfast until 1pm and has TWO outside patios. Oh, and the food was delish.

3. Bar Island Trail - Bar Island is a small Island near Bar Harbor Village. At low tides, a gravel bar is revealed that allows you to walk to the island from the village and hike to the top of the hill to get views of the harbor. BUT, you have to keep track of time! If you miss your window to get back on the bar, you have to wait 9 hours for the next low tide or call a water taxi. Low tide was at about 8am the day we wanted to do the hike, so we made sure to get there at 7:30, do the 2 mile hike and get back with plenty of time (you can walk across for about 1.5 hours before and 1.5 hours after the lowest tide point). I took the left photo the day before at approximately middle tide and the one on the right just before we walked across:

Photo on the left is the path up and on the right the view of Bar Harbor from the top:

It was kind of cool to do something that you had to catch at JUST the right time!

Easy doesn’t mean that at all - Mistakes were Made

I caught a cold early in our visit to Maine.  Very disappointing, but I soldiered on with our activities, insistent that I could not miss anything.  So, when I was investigating trails in Acadia National Park, I looked for “easy”, “walk in the woods,” and “OK for kids”, etc etc in the descriptions.  Apparently, in Acadia National Park, they don’t know what easy is.  One trail we went on was dissed by the park and referred to in the literature and on the signage as only a “path” and not a trail. I was offended for it initially, because it was a lovely trail through the woods, right up until we got to the part where you had to scramble over boulders.  Seriously, I was climbing - at one point, Craig had to help me get down from one of the boulders.  I never quite thought I was in danger, but this was not the “easy” trail I was looking for when getting over being sick.

On the other hand, it was really pretty on Jadon Pond PATH - here are some photos with captioned explanations (unfortunately, I don’t have photos of any of the boulders because I was focused on other things at the time):

View of pond from path.

On and off rain added drama

The “easy” part of the path

Narrow plankings in some areas

Another pretty view

Note that we were super lucky to choose to walk the path in the counterclockwise direction around the pond, so we had a lovely walk for 2/3 of the trail and then got to the rough part towards the end. We bumped into MANY frustrated groups going clockwise who were looking for reassurance that the whole path was not that bouldery.

Another day, we were sore from the previous day’s hiking, so we thought we would take two of the “easy” trails in the area at the southern tip of MDI. Ummmm, NOT EASY and MORE granite boulders (which of course you encounter too late to turn back). But, the views were amazing and we decided that the extra exercise meant we could indulge more at dinner.

Before I close, I wanted to also mention how pretty it was driving up and down the Maine coast on highway 1. Lots of walkable towns, lighthouses, and amazing ocean views. Here’s the view from one lunch spot we happened upon accidentally in Camden. Camden is very “metropolitan” for the Maine coast - they have an opera house (!), an international film festival (!!) and we had some of the best coffee there (!!!). But it’s also…..another cruise ship shore excursion spot! Craig’s restaurant rule still applied - the place we had lunch was a little further along from where everyone was doing their touristy thing, so it had great food AND a good view.

For more Maine photos, check out the gallery.