PGHphoto wrote:
Doing the family vacation in mid-September in Maine. We have the place in Surry off Newburry Neck Road and now looking to fill in the time slots with photography venues. I understand there are a lot of hiking trails in the area - any great ones ? Also looking for good shore areas with wilderness or lighthouses. Have aging in-laws coming with us so need to find some accessible places to take them which are also photogenic. Will be splitting time being a tourist and being a photographer but wouldn't mind being a tourist in a place where there are great photo ops. The less accessible locations will probably be just be me alone or with my triathlete wife. Any suggestions from Linda or others ?
Also, is this a dark sky area ? Seems to be in general but not sure specifically in/around Surry. Would love to do some astro-photography with a working lighthouse.
Thanks in advance.
-- Ken --
Doing the family vacation in mid-September in Main... (
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Everyone is assuming you want to visit Acadia National Park, but the town of Bar Harbor is about 45 minutes away. Cadillac Mountain is a bit further, then there is the drive to the top... The day I tried to see the sunrise from the top, everything was foggy! Have to go back and try again. However, no matter where you go in this part of Maine, it will take driving to get there. Maps of Mount Desert Island are available at the throughway rest areas, the best ones are in the regional information pamphlets. My suggestion for a first trip to Acadia National Park is to take a ride around the loop road. It is quite a long drive unless you cut it off half-way - there is a turn-off, easy to miss. The scenery is quite varied, and there are plenty of parking lots located at the most-visited scenic spots. As for difficulty, most spots are a mixture of easy to difficult, depending on your adventurous spirit! For instance, Otter Cliffs can be seen from close to the road, or you can go down on the rocky shore. Some people go to the area closer to the cliffs and actually walk out on them. There are other areas as well, you will be able to read up on them.
When I went to Acadia National Park, I traveled there up through Portland and Freeport, then east along the shore road. It would take a long time to visit all the places along the way that are interesting and picturesque, so I picked out a few to see. In York, Maine is the Nubble Lighthouse which sits on its own little island. The parking area is close to the shore from which you can view it. Portland's Old Port is quite touristy (parking is expensive), but it is also a working port. I took a walk out on one of the piers and took photos of the wharves, with all the restaurants, warehouses, and fishing boats with the city itself in the background. Freeport Maine has a nice little harbor, too. Early in the morning the fishing boats come in to load up bait. I talked to some of them, and watched how they use a winch to load the barrels of bait onto the boats. There are all different kinds of boats, mostly fishing boats, with most of them moored in the rows of slips. Another side trip on the way is Pemaquid Point, which sticks out into the ocean and has a lighthouse. Parking is close by and you can even go up in the lighthouse. The rocks of this shoreline are colorful with layers of different kinds of rock. You can walk out on the rocks and along the shore, but it is rough going. This area also has several harbors that are off the beaten path. I also stopped at Rockport where there is another pretty harbor. This one has many more pleasure boats than some of the others, but it is still very obviously a working harbor as well. Beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Just north of there is Camden, a photogenic old town.
In the Surry region there is the Blue Hill Peninsula, with a good view from the Hill and a "reversing" waterfall. Further south you go through some small towns, and can end up at Naskeag Point for some shore photography. There are working harbors and picturesque villages to see. I did not stop there, but have heard good things about it.
If you are interested in making a lot of stops along the way, there is a book I can recommend: the photographer's guide to the Maine Coast, by David Middleton and Bruce H. Morrison. It starts with Freeport and continues east to Lubec with its West Quoddy Lighthouse. David loves the harbors and lighthouses, so there are a lot of them mentioned, but he also speaks about the small towns and scenic areas. Every year he also leads photography workshops to different places, one of them a fall trip to Acadia National Park.
Hope this helps. The whole region has some beautiful areas. I got one of my favorite shots along the road near Eddington, of a branch of the Union River taken from a bridge - the river has a little zig-zag here and the fall colors were brilliant.
Susan