This is the street that leads to Bar Island.
Just walk to the end and ... keep going!
And we're on the causeway, and can't see the island! The fog was pretty heavy today.
It's amazing how much the tide goes up and down. We were already about 1.5m (5' or so) above sea level.
We weren't the only people with this clever idea. Lots of other folks about.
And gulls.
And heavy construction equipment?
Arriving on the island, there's a nice path you can follow around ...
... through grassy fields ...
... and past big piles of rocks.
Those are some glorious views of Bar Harbour itself.
Lots of little organised kayak trips set out every morning. Today was to be a hiking day for us.
Well, hiking after some breakfast, of course.
Okay, on our way to one of the designated parking areas in the park.
The roads are in great shape here. Must be that 25$ to get into the park.
There are trails everywhere here, and sometimes it's a bit hard to find the one you're looking for. We missed ours a few times.
Lots of beaches down here, but a bit chilly for a dip in the ocean.
There were a decent number of Taiwanese tourists about, so I kept hearing snippets of Mandarin Chinese....
This place is called "Thunder Hole", where there are always lots of people. But the reason for the name is that there's an underwater cave where at low tide, water comes crashing in making a huge racket. It's cool.
Okay, working our way onto the trails.
That's the Beehive mountain we'll be going up. Yikes!
WIth the rain, it was a bit slippy, and I was only wearing my Teva sandles.
The Beehive very quickly starts going straight up, and you absolutely need these helpers to get up.
They look pretty flimsy, but are hammered firmly in place and were awesome.
You pretty quickly rise above everything else.
Traffic backs up in some of the scarier parts of the trail.
Finally making it to the top, there's blue sky everywhere!
It's a nice place to relax for a while and eat some dried fruit.
Nice views of the surrounding hills too.
There are lots of these little rock "Cairns" all o'er the place.
We next worked our way to the Gorham Mountain trail. Note that "mountain" here means about 500m (1500') tall.
This one was much longer and much more gradual in its ups and downs.
Lots of people hang out at the top.
I just stood around looking sweaty and gross.
There are blueberries all over the place here (98% of America's blueberries come from Maine), so it's fun to stop for a snack.
Some parts of the trail are really well groomed.
We finally made our way back down to the coast, and started walking the opposite direction back to the car.
We hopped in the car and worked our way around the island to check out a few other neighbourhoods, including Northeast Harbour and Southwest Harbour.
Surprisingly, a lot of roads were blocked by police around here, so we worked our way back to the park and then Bar Harbour, for some exploring there.
