Wild Gardens of Acadia, Otter Point, and Eagle Lake

After a busy Friday, we decided to enjoy a rather lazy Saturday. The sky was gloomy and there was a chance of showers throughout the day. We had breakfast, relaxed around the campsite, and went back to bed for a few hours. It is vacation, right?

We left camp a little after one in the afternoon, and enjoyed a low key day at the park. We visited Sieur de Monts spring, the spring where George Dorr used to enjoy the spring and surrounding mountains. He went on to work with local property owners and the government to create Acadia National Park. At Sieur de Monts, we visited the Wild Gardens of Acadia, which is a showcase of all the various plant species throughout the park. There were a lot of ferns, the lady slipper was not yet in bloom, neither were the lilies, but we were able find a lily pads, wild iris, and a pitcher plant. Thom also caught a picture of a huge dragonfly that landed on one of the stepping stones.

Lily Pads! No frogs in sight though

A wild blue iris

A pitcher plant

A dragonfly

After the Wild Gardens of Acadia, we headed back onto the Park Loop Road and headed over to Otter Point. Otter Point is a rocky outcrop that marks the entrance to Otter Cove, the point where Samual de Champlain had to moor his ship over the winter for repairs. I like Otter Point because there are some nice views and plenty of tide pools to explore. We ate lunch on one of the rocky ledges, and then I climbed down into the tide pools. Thom watched out for rouge waves.

The view from Otter Point

This is Lucy, the crab

There is a little sea urchin in this picture

After Otter Point, we decided to head back to camp to start making dinner. On the way home, we stopped by the Carriage Road entrance to Eagle Lake. The carriage roads and granite bridges were built by Rockefeller as a means of providing access to some of the quieter places within the park. Rockefeller had a strong distaste for automobiles, and purposely built the roads too narrow for a car to drive down. He believed that automobiles caused too much pollution and the noise distracted from the serenity within the park.The carriage roads were originally built for horses with carriages, which can still be seen today; however, the majority of traffic is now cyclists and hikers. There is a joke that the gravel carriage roads are the best roads in Maine. I am certainly not one to argue. Eagle Lake is a quiet place, between Cadillac and Pemetic Mountains. It is one of the deepest lakes in the park.

One of the many granite bridges

Every carriage road intersection has a numbered sign post

A mother and three baby mergansers

Eagle Lake