Travel dates: June 18-21, 2018
Gearing up to write this post, I had feelings about it similar to the feelings I had about the actual stop on the trip: I kind of just want to get to Canada already! But I also know that Acadia is fabulous, and I want to make sure it gets the attention it deserves.
Acadia was a transitional space in a lot of ways. This was our last stop with Dave’s parents before we were back to traveling on our own. This was our first stop with Atlantic Canada style rocky beaches, which, we discovered, Fergus the anxious Scottie ADORES (he hates sandy beaches). We even encountered some Canadian level friendliness to prepare us for what was to come in Nova Scotia.
We were out on a hike one morning when some people approached us to ask if we were driving a blue van and told us that they’d noticed a hissing sound coming from one of the tires. And when we got back to the van we found two notes on the windshield warning us about the issue. Thanks to these lovely people and their dedication in seeking us out to warn us, we got to the tire before it was very low and were able to drive it down the road to the repair shop and avoid waiting for roadside assistance (the problem was a faulty valve, same thing that happened to another tire last summer). I thought I took a picture of the friendly notes, but apparently not.
I had never been to Acadia before, but Dave and his parents had many times. And his parents actually remembered details from some of those trips, so were able to suggest some great kid-friendly hikes and other activities for us. More time in Acadia certainly would have been nice, but I think we did a good job with our introductory (for me and the kids) visit.
Ship Harbor Trail
Ship Harbor is a 1.8 mile figure 8 loop trail, with lots of fun stuff for kids like rocks to climb on and tidepools to explore. It’s also the site of our van tire issues, but that’s not the trail’s fault. You start out going through forest and then you wind along the rocky coast for awhile before heading back.
Beech Mountain Trail
Another suggestion from Grandpa, this is a short, fairly easy hike with a big payoff (and some steep, scary drop offs, so be aware). The trail makes a short loop, with a number of lovely overlooks midway around.
The second my back was turned, Milo did this:
AAAHHH! Milo! I guess he gets it from Grandpa:
Nobody fell off a cliff. So that was a relief.
I spent a long time trying to figure out how best to direct you to this trail, because there’s also a Beech Mountain trail that involves climbing up ladders from the lake below, and that’s definitely NOT what we did! But I give up; it’s too confusing. Ask a ranger?
Walk to Bar Island
At the end of Bridge Street in the town of Bar Harbor, you’ll find a path to Bar Island that’s only accessible at low tide (or, more precisely, for about an hour and a half before and after low tide). When you get to island, you can hike up to the top for a nice view. We were all hiked out by the time we crossed, though, and just turned around and went back. So without the hike to the top of Bar Island, the main value here is the novelty of walking on the ocean floor.
Cruise ship!
You can also drive cars across here. But I wouldn’t:
Incidentally, parking in Bar Harbor was really challenging, even early in the season.
Cadillac Mountain
People like to get up super early to see the sun rise from Cadillac Mountain (because it’s the first place in the US to see the sun rise for much of the year). Other people do. We like to go there at a reasonable time of day instead. The views are awesome, and it was very, very windy. Terror level on the drive up was manageable, for other scaredy cats:
Bass Harbor Cruise
This was very brave of us. Just a few days after our terrible whale watch experience, we got back in a boat! Dave’s parents wanted to take us on this nature cruise (they’d done it before and had a good experience), but we were all various degrees of hesitant. But the woman at the ticket office guaranteed that it would be fine. So we stopped for dramamine for the more prone to seasickness among us and climbed aboard.
Bass Harbor Island Cruises is a private company (not affiliated with the National Park), and they offer a few different options for seeing the Bass Harbor area from the water. There’s one cruise that takes you to one of the small islands in the harbor for lunch, which sounds very cool. We opted for the afternoon nature cruise, which takes you all around the harbor to view several islands from the water (aboard a lobster boat) and generally offers some very cool wildlife spotting.
Tickets for the 2 hour cruise are $35 for adults and $20 for kids 3-11. It’s a small boat with no bathrooms on board, so keep that in mind before you get on board.
Dave promptly fell asleep, thanks to the dramamine:
But we woke him up. And we had a lovely boat ride! It was not a repeat of the whale watch! Occasionally the boat rocked back and forth a little and I started to have flashbacks, but mostly it was a super calm day. Our captain had grown up in the area and was very knowledgeable. And we saw lots of cool stuff, including a ton of sea birds and seals.
We saw a salmon farm:
And checked some lobster traps:
Look how not sick and miserable everyone looks!
Yay–we made it back!
That was about it for big things we did. We also spent a lot of time driving around and making quick stops. We went to the visitors center to watch the movie and get a Junior Ranger book for Abe. The movie amused everyone with its datedness: “There’s no “R” in Acadia, but there ARE [beautiful mountains, etc].” We stopped to see Thunder Hole, along with a million other people. There’s supposed to be a cool thing going on here with water crashing dramatically into the inlet, but while we were there things were decidedly undramatic.
Behold! The power of nature!
We stopped at Sand Beach, where there is sand. I guess if you’re used to rocky Maine beaches, this is a nice change. But we’d just spent a week at the very sandy Cape Cod, so we were actually more impressed with rocky beaches at this point.
And we stopped by the iconic Jordon Pond, but only very briefly. It was late in the day by then and we were all tired (and needed to get back to let the dogs out), plus they were doing construction so it wasn’t as idyllic as (I imagine) it usually is.
We ate at a couple of noteworthy restaurants. Our first night we looked for something fairly close to the campground and found Mainely Meat BBQ (get it?!) and Atlantic Brewing Company. The food was good, the beer was good, and I liked how they have a playground for kids to hang out on while waiting for food. Good for kids who’ve been cooped up in the car all day!
And on our last night we headed back over to near where Nana and Grandpa were staying to eat at Beal’s Lobster Pier, right on the water:
This is the part of the year when I get panicky about how slowly I’m blogging. Maybe panicky is too strong of a word. Concerned. But before I can pick up the pace and get to Canada, I’m going to pause for a couple of looking back at 2018/looking forward to 2019 posts.
maybe you would like to pin this?
Those are some beautiful rocks for those, like me, who like rocks. (Yay, Angus!)
no shortage of great rocks in Acadia!
Swooning over these pictures! They are so beautiful! I CAN NOT WAIT until we get to Acadia!
It’s really just so lovely there!
Your photos are beautiful! We are heading there this summer and can’t wait! We went to Bar Harbor on our honeymoon. Looking forward to going back to Cadillac Mountain. I am saving this for the hikes you mentioned. They look like something we could handle!
Thank you! Yeah, we were lucky to have my FIL on hand with his excellent memory for which hikes would work well for us. Have a great trip this summer!
We were here with a cruise so our time was limited to one day. After looking at all the tours for sale and the limited amount of time you get to stop at a few places in the park, we knew we needed to do it on our own. We rented a car from a local place and did Acadia at our own pace, stopping whenever we wanted for as long as we wanted. There are trails for people of all abilities and some of the views are amazing. We came at a perfect time, but I can see how parking at some stops would be impossible during a busy day or peak time. There are parking lots available, but some places are only big enough for a couple cars at a time with no road side parking. Pick something up for a picnic and enjoy the views, they don’t disappoint! You could spend as little as one hour if you just ride through the park to many days on the trails.