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Old 16 Jun 19, 03:23 PM  
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anji
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Road Trip round New England in the Spring, not the Fall! Day 2 – Danvers NH to Topsham, Maine

Day 2 – Danvers NH to Topsham, Maine via the coast

We slept super-well and I only woke up briefly a couple of times. 7.30 we were awake (later then I envisaged) and were down at breakfast by 8. The students were just finishing up but were really well behaved, as American school groups always seem to be, and we hadn’t heard a peep from anyone all night.

The breakfast room had lots of space and a good assortment of hot and cold food. We packed up and left the hotel at 9. It was still raining and cold but nowhere near as bad as the night before and we could actually see the surroundings and road markings!

We set off up the Interstate 95 to Portsmouth, where we would join US Highway 1 for most of the way to Acadia National Park. We didn’t stop in Portsmouth (probably something to do with living in Southampton haha!) but headed over the bridge and made our first stop by the coast at Kittery.

The sea was really churning and we stopped by a small park to admire the waves and view. The houses around were very well-to-do and the park was lovely with some good sculptures.


We drove along the Shore Road to Ogunquit, a sweet little town, and then on to lunch at Wells in the Maine Diner. This was a really popular place – a good sign. Will had basically a second breakfast of eggs, bacon and homefries with toast and I had a crab cake sandwich. Will can’t eat fish so I tend to have a fair bit of it when we eat out. The crab cake was enormous, flattened and breaded and very tasty.

I took over the driving here. We both love driving in America and don’t find it daunting at all (unless it’s dark, raining and we’ve just arrived, or the 7 lane highway round LA when you suddenly realise you have to cross all the lanes to exit!).

We stopped in Kennebunk Port and I was really proud of myself for reverse parking this big beast into a kerbside space at the first attempt. It was quite busy and it was this space or no space basically. We had a good walk around and crossed the bridge and back. It reminded us slightly of St John’s Pass in Florida in places. A lovely place.


Nubble Lighthouse was our next stop and Fort Williams Park. The lighthouse wasn’t open but we spent a good while walking round and watching the waves. The park was lovely and they were doing a lot of renovations. The weather was extremely windy and cold here!

Portland next and we parked near the harbour. I had to go into a shop to get change for the meter and bought my Mum some ginger caramels as she loves all things ginger. We loved Portland and would have stayed there overnight but I had seen that just up the road at Topsham there was a B&B with beavers at the end of the garden (or so I hoped). We spent a good hour here and popped into Starbucks for a coffee. Lots of lovely independent shops and we loved the cobbles and buildings.


Our accommodation for the night was at Topsham (pronounced Tops-am), just outside the town of Brunswick. Brunswick was lovely with a typical wide Main Street and we crossed the Androscoggin River and the weirs over to Topsham. The Black Lantern B&B was easy to find and we were greeted by the owners, Tom and Judy.

We checked in at 5.15pm, which was good as we had to be there by 6. On reflection I should have allowed more time to travel up the coast to Acadia as I would have liked to spent more time in the towns along the way – next time!

The house was very old and typical New England clapboard. There were 3 rooms to stay in. I’d booked the Androscoggin room as it overlooked the river and had windows on 2 walls, so was light and airy. We had a lovely view!


Tom recommended the Old Seadog Brewery for dinner, which was on an island in the middle of the river on the edge of Brunswick. I’d already seen this and had planned to go there, but thanked him for his advice.

We had a walk down the garden to the river bank. The Androscoggin is a really major river, very wide and fast flowing at that time. No beavers to be seen at the moment but someone had said in reviews that they enjoyed watching them, hence the booking. I did see a beautiful chicken which belonged to the house and the henhouse too, but no beavers.


We did the short drive to the Seadog and looked at the raging river. I had a chicken and pesto flatbread with a bottle of Bud Light and Will had his first burger of the holiday (bit of a burger expert) in the form of a bacon and cheddar burger. He also had a pint of something called Old Gollywobbler (!) which turned out to be so good that he had a second! Excellent meal for $43 plus tip.


We were back at the Black Lantern by 9.30 and in bed soon after 10 as the day before had caught up with us. We do find that we get up earlier and go to bed earlier during a lot of nights on holidays due to the time difference. No bad thing.


The rain hadn’t been massive today but it had been cold and windy. We were expecting this though so came prepared. I was looking forward to visiting the riverbank the next morning to look for the beavers again. Little did I know that looking for beavers was going to be quite a big thing on this holiday! Looking, yes. Seeing, no.

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Edited at 03:30 PM.
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Old 16 Jun 19, 08:57 PM  
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disney owl
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Your B&B looks lovely
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Old 8 Jul 19, 07:26 AM  
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WileyCoyote
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What a fab day. The sea looks so dramatic. Fab pics. What lovely looking places and love your Airbnb place . Wot no beavers ? Pesky critters evading you.
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Old 8 Jul 19, 02:41 PM  
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anji
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Lack of beavers became a standing joke the whole holiday ..!
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Old 12 Jul 19, 09:28 AM  
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Such lovely views! Love that picture with all the signposts.

I can see that you really need to do your research for this type of road trip, as it seems there is so much to see.
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Old 1 Apr 20, 03:27 PM  
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Love that first picture, it’s like a movie location. The weather certainly adds to the atmosphere.

The house looks lovely.
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Old 1 Apr 20, 05:30 PM  
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anji
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Originally Posted by jocat View Post
Such lovely views! Love that picture with all the signposts.

I can see that you really need to do your research for this type of road trip, as it seems there is so much to see.
Yes, I did do a lot of research - my favourite thing to do!
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Old 1 Apr 20, 05:31 PM  
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anji
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Originally Posted by collybird View Post
Love that first picture, it’s like a movie location. The weather certainly adds to the atmosphere.

The house looks lovely.
The weather made the coastline look really wild! The house we stayed in was beautiful, as were all the b&b places we visited I love clapboard houses
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Florida Road Trip 2022
Canada/Pacific NW Road Trip 2022
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Road Trip California & Arizona 2023
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