Oriental Surprise Overlooking Clark Cove

Friday Afternoon, July 14, 2017                                                                  Most Recent Posts:
Acadia National Park                                                                              Lesser Known Outings on MDI
Mount Desert Island, Maine                                                      A Cautionary Tale of Acadia – Pemetic South 

 

This post is a continuation from the previous one about Lake Wood.  The link to it is above in blue.

Later in the day, after lunch, we drive over to one of the Maine Coast Heritage Trust properties known as Blue Horizons. It’s located on Clark Cove just off of Indian Point Road on the western side of Mount Desert Island not too far from Lake Wood Pond where we were this morning.  It too is a lesser known spot.

Blue Horizon is an 82-acre preserve with small meadows surrounded by a maturing spruce forest and bordered by a cobble beach.   I couldn’t find any information about its history either at the preserve or on line but it appears that it must have been someone’s home although there is no house remaining only two cottages where some lucky Trust volunteers live for the summer.  We did not see the cottages.  I imagine that the property was accepted as a preserve because of the lovely beach.   In this area of all private homes, it gives the public access and allows us a close up look at the shore outside the park.

There are a couple of parking spaces on Indian Point Road beyond the gated drive to the property. You walk in from the road.

 

I found the property map on line so I knew that we would walk down the road to the first trail on the left, take it to the beach and then walk the beach to the right and take the second path back. Seemed easy.

 

We hiked the driveway down to the first trail and turned in.

 

The meadows were pretty small. The trail mostly went through forest and bog to the beach.

In the woods we discover a very long rock wall which would seem to indicate that at one time the property was a farm. It always brings a smile to my face when I come upon a rock wall in the woods.  I wonder what the farmer would have to say about all his hard work being abandonded and his fields now in trees.

 

There was a nice long boardwalk through the boggy sections where if we kept moving, the mosquitoes were tolerable.

 

 

The woods goes right up to the shoreline.   I assume the land across the way is the other side of the cove.

 

 

 

The beach is lovely and I wished I brought a chair given the short hike down.   We turned left to see a little in that direction before coming back to the other trail at the end of the preserve’s beach.

 

 

I had thought I might climb up on this rock but closer inspection made it clear that even with the small helpful step, my legs are too shore and the angle too steep for scrambling.

 

 

 

Further down the beach we could see a rock with what looked like a great blue heron fishing on it.

 

A camera zoom showed it to be a sculpture attached to the rock on the far side.

 

 

Walking down to inspect on what little was available of the shore at what must have been close to high tide, we came around a bend and found a totally different shore line.

 

 

 

 

From this side, we can’t see much. You’d really have to be out in the water at a distance, up on the property or overhead.  But it was really intriguing to find what looks like it might be a Japanese teahouse here on the coast of Maine.  What a surprise.  Because of his height advantage, David’s pictures are much more revealing than mine.

 

 

We walk past in order to possibly get a better view from the other side and encounter these steps from the beach going up.   Boy I really wanted to climb them.

 

 

 

 

The large bottom two steps look out directly on the heron sculpture which I’m sure can be seen from above as well.

 

 

 

David captured the best view from the far end of the property beach.

 

 

 

There was another structure back in the woods on the far edge of the property.

 

 

 

At this point we turned around to head back and see the other end of the beach.  I took one last photograph of the sculpture from this angle.  I wonder how many beach walkers he fools from a distance?

 

 

Our final shot as we passed by the property edge and looked back revealed this.  I have no idea what road the property is on  but it really intrigued us.  Shouldn’t a big brass gong be hanging inside the circle??

 

 

Later I did some snooping around on the internet but was unable to find anything about the house other than this zoomed in picture from google Earth which seems to show that perhaps behind the retaining wall above us were these pools and the red structure above is visible to the left below them.  I feel a bit like paparazzi.

 

 

We headed back down the beach to the spot where we came in from Blue Horizons.

 

 

We wanted to walk down the shore to the other trail and take it back up completing the circuit.

 

Along the way this nice driftwood bench with back presented itself.

 

And then we ran into a problem.   We aren’t sure if this was just a rock slide or if some sort of walkway had collapsed or been taken out by a storm.  The large pieces seemed to indicate something had once been here.  David was behind me and I thought he was taking pictures all the way as this rock slide went quite a distance and I had to use both hands to climb up to a staircase coming down from the two houses on Blue Horizons property used as housing for preserve volunteers.  But this is the only picture he has of it.   Looks like I”m just walking along but that was far from the case.

 

This is the other side where I assume you should be able to walk up the steps and across and back down to the beach perhaps.  Or maybe you just can’t get here from there at high tide without the scramble.   If so, time your visit to the tides if you want to walk both trails.

 

 

We keep walking and walking and walking and wondering if we’ll see the trail back or if we’ve missed it when I catch sight of this little blue arrow on a sign nailed to a tree just before we really have run out of beach we can walk.   The preserve has a very long beach front.  Or it seemed that way to us.

 

 

 

 

The bog section of the trail is much shorter on this side.

 

 

The woods here are rich and lovely.  No mosquito problems.

 

Bunchberry are plentiful

 

 

So are interesting mushrooms.

This photo of Little Wood Satyr butterfly with the light shining on him is one of my favorites from today.

 

 

 

What would a hike be for David without something to pick and eat.  He finds it in the meadow on our way out of Blue Horizons.

 

 

 

In our quest to sample various lobster rolls and dinners while here this summer, we stop off at our Down East Lobster Pound neighbor.  You can walk there from Narrows Too but we catch it on our way home from Blue Horizons.

You can get lobster any size any way you want it here.  There is a small “order” room inside the front door with the tanks.  You tell them what you want, they take your money and send you back outside to the pick up window.

 

 

This more distant shot of the pick up area shows the stairs leading up to top deck dining where we go.  There is inside dining just underneath it as well.

 

 

 

The lobster rolls were excellent and a great way to finish off a busy day of paddling, hiking  and beach combing.  There is just no end of things to do and see on Mount Desert Island.