Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine

Friday 10 August 2012 –  From Stowe to Portland via the White Mountains

Day 119 and 41 to go

It was lovely being able to have a sleep in this morning waking at 8.30am after a reasonable night’s sleep. We had a shower and packed our things and then went down stairs for breakfast. Here I was able to check the computer and plan our drive for today.
Once sorted we returned to the room, grabbed our bags and then checked out, heading into Stowe to find the post office. We sent home a poster box that cost us $25 as opposed to the $80 we would have paid in Germany. With that sorted we were back in the car heading to St Johnsbury an hour away.

The drive continued to be a picturesque one driving through farmland and wilderness. By the time we reached St Johnsbury we were only 50 min drive from the Canadian border and 2 ½ hours from Montreal.

St Johnsbury was a reasonable sized town though we didn’t stop rather we just drove through heading on to Littleton in New Hampshire. On the way we passed a large lake that we navigated towards so that I could take a better look.

We continued to drive on passing through Littleton and on to Crawford Notch where we pulled over at the information centre to get some info and to take photos of the lake across the road. We could see the weather was starting to roll in. The clouds were very low and rolling over the White Mountains. It was beautiful but ominous.

We drove a little further down the road to check out the Silver and Flume waterfalls. They were not particularly large but still lovely to see.  We were back in the car just as the sky turned black and the rain started.

We made our way through the thick forest wondering what might be lurking inside the trees. Paul was hoping a moose or bear would pop out but no such luck. I am sure they weren’t far away.

At 2pm we stopped in Conway and had lunch at the local diner. It was cheap and cheerful and just what we needed to refuel before continuing on. I took over the driving for the final 1 ½ hours. The view continued to impress and remained easy to navigate through.

Portland appeared unexpectedly from the wilderness and the thick fog that had set in. We made our way to our hotel after having to recheck the address. We checked in set up our room and then got back in the car and drove to the Portland Headlight, the most photographed lighthouse on the east coast of America.

We parked nearby and walked around the lighthouse. It was obviously a popular spot for couples as there were a couple of weddings being carried out. The lighthouse had it’s fog horn blaring due to the fog and another lighthouse out in the harbour was following suit. It was so foggy we could only just make out the outline of a large ship.

We returned to the hotel at 5.30pm for a rest before dinner. I did some work on the computer while we watched the TV news. It appears there is some heavy weather expected including a twister further south. Hmmmm. By now it had started to rain heavier. We had a shower got changed and then headed out in search of dinner.

We made it into the centre of Portland heading for the waterfront. We were able to find parking on the street and then made it through the rain to a local pub. We ordered the lobster roll, seeing Maine is known for its lobster. The pub was so loud. We ate our dinner quickly and then got out of there and made our way back to the hotel.

We were disappointed that the rain made it too difficult to explore Portland further as it looked like it would have been an interesting town to wander around, oh well next time.

Once back in the hotel we sat watching the Olympics before calling it a night.

View Larger Map