A day trip to Deer Isle, Maine

Our first day in Bar Harbor started gray and drizzly – at least it wasn’t as rainy as when we’d arrived the night before. Late morning Don suggested we go explore Deer Island, which is west of Mount Desert Island where Bar Harbor is, but requires quite a long circuitous route to get to.

So Don and Mindy, Lisa and Roger set off in the red Camaro for the day’s trip.

The image above is a panorama looking south from mainland Maine (Maineland I guess??) towards Deer Island.

Deer Island is separated from the Maineland by a reach of the Atlantic Ocean, which is bridged by the Deer Isle-Sedgwick Bridge

This is from the south side of the bridge looking back toward the Maineland.

Once on Deer Island we proceeded down to the south and Stonington (Maine), where after a quick look up and down main street decided to eat at the Fisherman’s Friend Restaurant that is right by the harbour in Stonington. What a place – seating for about 140 people, and there were just the 4 of us there.

We each had a meal of some type of fish – you don’t go to Maine to have a steak!!!!! – after which it was back in the car for the return journey by some different roads.

We’d seen a sign for “Nervous Nellie’s Jams and Jellies”, so with memories of the great place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula run by a brotherhood of monks called “The Jam Pot” we followed the signs and after initially overshooting the driveway found ourselves in a car park surrounded by some very “odd” creatures – see this separate post about the Artwork there. But the great variety of jams and jellies on sale lured us into buying 4 jars.

We followed the road out to the eastern-most end of Deer Island, in fact over a causeway to what was probably originally another separate island to a place called Sunshine, and while out there looking for the end of the road found a large granite outcrop that angled up off the road, so we had to drive up on to that.

This outcrop of granite is clearly visible on the Google map of the area. After this it was on the road back across the Deer Isle-Sedgwick Bridge, and then a stop at the overlook on the way up Caterpillar Hill which offered a grand view to the south

of Deer Island and places beyond. The Deer Isle-Sedgwick Bridge is clearly visible.

Interesting speculation on why the hill is named Caterpillar Hill – there were certainly quite a number of tent caterpillar nests in the bushes at the turnout!!!

After that it was back to Bar Harbor, with a detour via the Atlantic Brewing Company  – Don wanted to get some ginger beer, and I wanted to just smell the Knox Road Grill in anticipation of a meal there at some stage, but alas we got there 1 minute after they had closed.

A photo gallery of the pictures from this day can be seen here