Saturday, 5 October 2013

New England Fall

Bar Harbour Maine is on a small island called Mount Desert Island. Silver Whisper is anchored in a wide bay dotted with rocks, islands and lobster pots, along with Seabourn Sojourn and Holland America Eurodam. There is a lot of tender activity throughout the day.
TSH and Diva do their fourth choice of excursion, which is a short drive around the island. There is autumn colour today, estimated at over 50%. The leaf colours are yellow, orange and red and they pick up the light so that they look like explosions of colour as they come into view. The bright colours are punctuated by the silver grey colours of the trunks. Ironically, these effects are due to a massive fire in 1947 which burned down many wooden dwellings, as well as the evergreen trees which have now been replaced by the deciduous trees which acquire the colours. The dwellings are in fact very large smart houses which are the second (third, fourth… ?) of extremely rich Americans.
The island is home to Acadia,  a US national park, which is closed because of the Government shut-down. It is possible to walk into it but there are many cars parked by the roadside because the car parks are closed. Diva wondered why the people did not just remove the barriers to enter their own national park and in fact she later discovered that just such an act of civil disobedience is planned for a few days time.

TSH saw a seal but is disappointed there were not many more.

No comments:

Post a Comment