War & Lobsters - New England

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August 6th 2007

Published: August 7th 2007

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Ando

Maine - Lumber Jack Country

Maine is famous for its Lumber Jacks and Lobsters, but I couldn't find a giant Lobster statue so this had to do....

Our trip into New England began on Tuesday the 31st July, about 2 days after we had planned. Our time in Canada had been so enjoyable that we had spent an additional couple of days in Ontario which limited our time in New England. After reading through the ever-trusty Lonely Planet Guide (we’ll never travel without one of these suckers) we picked out a path that would lead us through all six of the New England states. The main sites we had picked out were New Hampshire’s White Mountains National Park, Vermont’s covered Bridges, Yale in Connecticut, Rhode Island’s Mansions, and finally Martha’s Vineyard (from Fi - my pick, always wanted to go there) and Boston in Massachusetts.

Maine

Having really loved our time in Quebec City we departed with a feeling of regret that we could not spend more time there, but quickly turned our attention to the frustrating 80km/h speed limit which appeared to exist on every road in Canada that we were on. This slowed our progress somewhat and we arrived at the USA border into Maine a bit later than expected. After a quick look at the Duty Free shop on the border (which was a

The Boulder Loop Walk

Here's the view that greeted us at the completion of the Boulder Loop Walk - the water falls would have been better!

new experience for us seeing as we weren’t in an airport) we crossed the border into Maine. Maine was exactly as you’d picture it - a pretty wild place of rolling pine covered hills. It is also quite a vast state (bigger than the rest of the New England States combined), so vast in fact that we completely under-estimated how long it would take to travel across it. We only intended to spend a short period of time in Maine, driving through back roads to try to get a feel of the state. The place is simply too big and sparsely population & our time restrictions forced us to spend only a fleeting period of time within her borders. Although we anticipated arrived at New Hampshire’s White Mountains at about 2pm - 3pm, we managed to get there some time around 9pm. Whilst we managed to see a lot of Maine, this pushed our itinerary back even further. So a fairly boring and uneventful day of clocking up some serious miles in the Drongo - in fact we clocked up so many miles the next time we filled her up it came to the grand total of $96!!! (from Fi

The Falls.....finally

Finally we made it to the Falls....the swim was beautifully refreshing...

- it was beautiful, well worth the drive even if we didn't see a Moose!)

New Hampshire

We stayed the night in a small hotel in the town of Conway nestled among the White Mountains. We planned to spend half the day travelling across the Kanacamagus highway which was 54 miles long right through the centre of the National Park. The highway is described by the Lonely Planet as being ‘laced with excellent hiking trails, scenic lookouts, and swimmable streams- this is as natural as it gets’. They weren't wrong! The highway was shadowed by a shallow pebble and rock strewn stream that wound its way through the rugged mountains. The water was shallow, ankle to knee depth in most places, but created small white rapids which contrasted against the dark green pines which leaned out from the river bank in the search for sunlight - it was beautiful. Our first stop was the 5km hiking trail to Lower Falls. It was quite a hot day so we thought this loop walk would be great - an uphill climb for about 3 km, rewarded with a swim in the cool water followed by a gentle 2 km

The Hiking Tracks

Creeks like this one shadowed all the roads and hiking tracks in the area making it an absolutely beautiful place to explore.

decent back to the car - awesome! Well it was about 30 minutes into this ridiculously steep climb that we realised I possibly, maybe, could’ve, misread the map and we were actually doing the ‘Boulder Loop Trail’…..hmmmm apparently our efforts were going to be rewarded with a lovely view of boulders and no swim - not happy Jan! Although we were climbing one of the highest peaks in the mountain in 30 degree heat it turned out that the views from the top were more than of boulders and were well worth the walk. Fortunately the trip down was much easier and we had the bonus of encountering our first chipmonks (at least we think they were chipmonks - maybe we should call them chipmonk rodent things). After guzzling about a litre of water each we jumped in the car and found the Lower Falls a short 500m further down the road. After our sweaty adventure a dip in the Lower Falls was just what the doctor ordered. We threw on our togs and made for the swimming hole. It was a beautiful place not unlike the Buley Rock Pools in Darwin (for those that have been there), although here

Holy Smokes - A MOOSE!!!!

This is the only moose that we saw on our whole drive.... :-(

the water was truly refreshing. Fi jumped in and I thought her eyeballs were going to pop out - cold wasn’t the word to describe it. The shrinkage factor was very high to extreme as we paddled to the other side of the stream to climb onto one of the sun backed boulders to get a bit of warmth back into our bodies. Fiona said it was the coldest water that she’d ever swum in (obviously she can’t remember when I threw her in the ocean at Lakes Entrance in Victoria during winter that time), and I was greatful for the warmth of the sun encouraging blood to start flowing to certain regions of my body again! Feeling somewhat refreshed we jumped back in the car and visited a number of scenic lookouts before stopping at what is considered the number one attraction - the Sabbaday Waterfalls. These things were impressive because they were actually a series of waterfalls that did a 90 degree turn due to the cliff formations they ran over. Something relatively unique that we hadn't seen before. After the falls we jumped back in the car and finished the highway...although the numerous road signs promised -

Vermont - Covered Bridge Central

Hmmmm.....nice, but was it worth the drive?

we had still not seen a Moose!

Vermont

We spent another good couple of hours before arriving in Brattleboro, Vermont - the home of 30 covered bridges. I’d been pretty keen to see some covered bridges as they seemed to typify country America. With the aid of ‘Covered Bridges Self Driving Tour Map’ we quickly found our first covered bridge - a great American Icon. Wow, a bridge with a roof - awesome! Feeling somewhat underwhelmed and wondering why we’d bothered we jumped onto one of the great US Interstate Highways and headed down to New Haven, Connecticut, home of Yale University.

Connecticut

Yale was a very interesting place to visit. Although one of the older Universities in the US, only one of the original buildings remained - the rest had been built in the Neo-Gothic style, designed to look old although most we only around 100 years old. In fact they went to so much trouble to make it look old that they poured acid over Harkness Tower, Yale's iconic spire, to make it looked aged. The result was very effective, in fact too effective - the acid they used was too strong

Yale University

This is a great photo of the Carillon that Fiona took. All the building were designed in the same Neo-Gothic manner making it a very impressive place.

and the spire is now under extensive repair to ensure it doesn’t erode away!! Overall however the whole place felt like it was 400 - 500 years old. An interesting way in which Yale was/is planned is that there are no walls or boundaries separating the Uni from the city - the University buildings are simply built on city blocks like any other building. This helped to integrate the University into New Haven and prevent much of the anxiety and ill-feeling suffered by many other universities and their host cities around the world. The tour was conducted by a student volunteer and was really quite interesting - of note was the ‘Guild of Carilloners’ who are a bunch of music nerds who play the bells that form the Carillon in the Harkness Tower. They are permitted to play any music they wish, and these crazy and zany guys rebel against ‘the man’ playing outlandish music like the Lion King Theme.

Rhode Island

After the tour we left Connecticut and headed for New Port, Rhode Island, the playground of the rich and famous and home to many mansions lining the coast line. This whole area of the US

'The Breakers' Mansion

Who is that Handsome Devil??

is quite small; in fact it only takes about an hour to drive across most of the six states (except Maine obviously). In fact Rhode Island is only 48 miles north to south and 37 miles east to west - nearly as far as we had to drive to get to a swimming hole when we were living in Darwin, but not quite. Rhode Island is also deceptively named - it is not in fact an island, however part of Rhode Island is an island called Rhode Island which is where New Port is - confused yet? New Port has been the holiday location for America’s wealthiest for around 150 years and the place is lined with huge mansions. Many of them have now passed out of the respective families and are now opened to tourists. Fiona and I did a tour of the most famous of them; ‘The Breakers’. This is a 70 room mansion (of which 47 are bedrooms) built by the Vanderbilts in the 1890’s. Over 2000 French and Italian builders were employed to build this absolutely extravagant mansion in just under two years. It cost around $8 million to building in the 1890’s and many of

Martha's Vineyard

Here are some of the more 'Run-of-the-Mill' houses that you'll find in Martha's Vineyard.

the rooms were constructed in France before being pulled apart, shipped to the US and then reconstructed at the current site. We weren’t allowed cameras inside and words just can’t describe how opulent it is. It is simply the most luxurious place I have ever seen. We could have easily spent much more time in New Port, however the time remaining on our trip was quickly coming to an end so we jumped in the car and headed back into Massachusetts, next stop - Martha’s Vineyard.

Massachusetts

We spent the night in a town called Falmouth which was right near the ferry terminal so we could catch it across and spent the day on Martha’s Vineyard with no fuss. However, our attempts to catch the ferry across to Martha’s Vineyard started disastrously and ended not much better. First we drove about 10km in the wrong direction before realising our error. We then managed to get lost whilst traveling on the correct road (we thought we were lost and had to stop for directions but we weren’t lost at all) before we finally arrived at the ferry terminal. It was here that things got even better - you

More of Martha

These are some of the more flash places that overlook the Harbour.

couldn’t park your car at the ferry, you had to drive back to Falmouth to park your car and catch a shuttle - they just didn’t bother putting this on their advertising brochures. (from Fi - imagine what this did to Dan!!!) We missed the ferry and as you could imagine I was just super happy….We eventually caught the ferry across and arrived at the ‘Vineyard’. Martha’s Vineyard is a 100 square mile island off the southern coast of Massachusetts and has 3 - 4 majors towns of a couple of thousand people. Basically it is a quaint little place that has three types of people on it, locals, tourists out for day trips, or holiday makers with lots of money. Fiona and I quickly found a bike rental place and hired two bikes for the day. Once again we made a couple of wrong turns resulting in an extra 7 - 8 km on the bike (damn cartoon style maps are not to scale I found out), but it was very pleasant. We explored the two towns of Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluff. There were some beautiful old houses and more boutique shops (yay!), but it was a very

What The..???

I have no idea what this sign is getting at....Jamo must have been standing there when they made it. Who put this photo in anyway??

hot day and we were soon keen for a swim. I’d managed to forget my boardies so had to buy a pair, and by this time Fi had blown a heat gasket (from Fi - it was seriously hot!!) and was ready for a swim. The water was beautifully clean and refreshingly cold which was just what we need. Our time on the Vineyard was quickly over and we caught the Ferry to the shuttle bus to the car and headed for Boston. (from Fi - another ferry ride, just loved it, the water was beautiful...so good to be on a boat and not have to do any work!!)

Boston
We’d managed to jag two nights in the Boston Intercontinental hotel for about 25%!o(MISSING)f the usual price because we were staying on the weekend (the hotel caters to business travelers), so Fiona and I were looking forward to a bit of luxury at the end of the holiday. What we didn’t realise was that luxury hotels provided nothing free, and we spent more on parking the bloody Drongo for two nights than we’d spent in most hotels on the rest of the trip!! $78 USD to park the

The Freedom Trail

I included this picture as you can see the red brick path of the Freedom Trail in the picture. You can also see two pairs of legs with no bodies if you look closely...

bloody car - very un-Australian I told them, but they didn’t really understand. Anyway, Boston is probably the nicest city we have visited in the US. It is a place full of history, as many of the events leading to the Revolutionary War occurred in Boston, including the infamous Boston Tea Party. We started our day in Boston with a trip on the subway out to Harvard University. Like most American subways we have ridden there were absolutely no directions on how the ticketing system worked. We eventually figured out how things worked and made our way out to Harvard.

Harvard is the oldest University in the US and has maintained many of its buildings. As a result it is not as impressive as Yale and was somewhat of an anti-climax for us. After leaving our guided tour halfway through we were left thinking ‘Well at least we can say we have been there….’ We jumped the train back into the city to the Boston Common, a 50 acre park in the middle of town. The Common also houses the first Botanical Gardens in the US. We wandered around one of the more snooty suburbs of the city and

The Boston Common

This is a statue of George Washington greeting people as they walk into the Boston Botanical Gardens.

found some beautifully homed streets complete with original cobble stones. We also stumbled across the bar ‘Cheers’ that they used in the TV show (well the external component anyway!).

It was soon time to trod the most beaten path in Boston - The Freedom Trail. The City has established a red bricked (or painted in some places), 5 km path that runs through the city past the most significant Bostonian Historic Landmarks. Some of these land marks include churches, schools and cemeteries where famous revolutionaries attended, prayed, buried or farted in. The most interesting sights to Fiona and I were ‘The Bell and Hand’, America’s oldest Tavern, and the USS Constitution, the oldest commission ship in the world. Built in 1797, the Constitution served in the war of 1812 and earned the nickname ‘Old Ironsides’ and was pretty impressive ship to see. The museum was full of the usual rhetoric - ‘This ship stands for Liberty and Freedom…..etc etc’, but you really had to respect the way they used the ship not only as a historical landmark, but also a means of demonstrating the contribution the Navy has made to US history (pity we can’t say the same in

4-Star Hotel

Just enjoying the luxury hotel....

Australia!!!!! - Hah, take that Fiona). We then caught a ferry ride (our 4th for the trip- from Fi...there may have been a bit of arm twisting to get on all of the boats!!) back to the city and retired to the hotel to relax for a while. This really ended our trip which was a bit sad, but after traveling so intensely for 2 weeks we were glad to get back home.

Reflecting on our trip we realised that in the two weeks that we spent in Canada, a land rich with history, and New England, a region proud of its contribution to US education, the only museum we visited was the Bata Shoe Museum!! Looks like we are going to have a bit of ground to make up when we visit New York and the home of the Smithsonian's, Washington DC! Until then we are planning on spending a bit of time at home and enjoying living by the beach for the remainder of summer (plus saving a bit of dough!!).

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