The Coast of Maine...

The drive from Boston into Maine passes through New Hampshire for about 20km. NH apparently realises that motorists on that stretch have no real interest in the state, and so extracts value from them by charging a modest toll. A clever strategy, we think.

This bridge in Bath has thankfully been replaced by a newer one.

The Maine coast is an absolutely exquisite and never-ending series of pretty harbours and deep inlets, even some fjords. It would be possible to spend weeks exploring this area properly, but we only allowed two days, so chose the 'highlights' from Lonely Planet, namely Boothbay Harbor and Bar Harbor.

Boothbay Harbor is very pretty but was suffering a windy snowstorm during our visit.

Idyllic winter seascape with leaden skies from the Maine midcoast.

We had to pull up to give way to these guys on Route 1A into Bangor.

Both of these towns proved to be large places with loads of accommodation and tourist attractions. Of course, being winter, almost all of these were closed. On the internet, we couldn't find anywhere open at all, and wound up staying off the coast in the city of Bangor (made famous by Roger Miller, was it?) and doing day-trips to the harbours. Driving around them, we did indeed find one or two places open, but very few. Almost all hotels have their signs covered up with messages like 'see you in May'. In retrospect, we could have stayed closer, but Bangor was an OK base.

Pretty Bar Harbor town is really busy in summer, but in winter is virtually closed to tourists.

Not surprisingly, there were no holiday-makers along this coast. The people we saw were tradesmen, or business owners doing improvements or maintenance in advance of the season. Just enough stores and cafes were open to service these locals, so we were able to find some restrooms and bites to eat during our exploration.

Grand houses enjoy prime positions on Mt Desert Island.

Frankly, the towns were ordinary compared to, say, those we saw in Cape Cod and Nantucket. But the coastal scenery was stunning, and this made us a little sad that we didn't allow more time here. In the Boothbay region, weather was poor and we encountered a snowstorm, but we enjoyed perfect (but freezing) conditions for the Bar Harbor area. Bar Harbor is wrapped up in the Acadia National Park on an island called Mt. Desert Island. This is stunning country - the public roads were open for us to explore, but most of the famous driving loop in Acadia was closed, and (by observation) being used by cross-country skiers, and unfortunately, some ski-do riders.

The sign said that sand beaches are so rare in Maine, that this one is called Sand Beach! No-one was swimming.

Ice falls right on the beach at Sand Beach.

The Beehive is a popular climbing trail, and overlooks Sand Beach.

Anxious to eat more of the delicious fresh seafood we had experienced in Massachusetts, we tried to eat at the Longhorn Steakhouse in Bangor, but discovered that at 6:00pm there was a one hour waiting list! We had been warned, but this must be the number one eatery in Bangor! So, we used our Garmin navigator to hunt around and settled on the Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse, which had an eponymous menu, and not much great seafood unfortunately. But a pleasant place, and we had a good meal. Its greatest feature was a wall-mounted animatronic bison which moved his head and mouth and spoke to the diners every so often!

Spectacular views over the Atlantic Ocean from Acadia National Park.

Lobster boats in Northeast Harbor on Mt Desert Island.

We drove out of Maine east from Bangor directly to the Canadian border at Calais (we note the non-French speakers here deliberately and heavily pronounce the 's' at the end). This desolate two hour drive along an excellent road with widely scattered very small villages made us realise that Maine is mainly empty except for the coastal strip. This is an unfair generalisation, of course, but we can see why Maine is nicknamed 'the pinetree state'!

The saltiest and dirtiest Jeep beside the frozen wall of Sargent Drive along Somes Sound in Mt. Desert Island.