Today we had planned to return to Mount Desert Island which was over an hour's drive away. We were getting to know the route now and noticed more of the quirky detail along the way. Everyone seemed to be selling camp fire wood bundles or "antiques". The latter often appeared to be little more than junk displayed in the garage but we resisted stopping to browse and confirm our jaundiced perceptions. One detail we noticed was a school with the motto, "If you don't work, nothing will." We couldn't quite decide if this was brilliant or naff!

No time for coffee stops today as we planned to make the best of the warm sunshine and had put together a number of short trails to make a reasonable day's looped hike over on the quieter west side of the island with views of Somes Sound. We parked just north of Southwest Harbor and quickly climbed up through woods to the top of Flying Mountain, a whole 284 feet above the Sound! Dropping back down, the next section of trail looked like it contoured round Valley Cove for about a mile. We'd expected a gentle woodland walk along the water's edge but what we got was a challenging granite boulder field albeit with a marked "path". Although we were only 50 feet or so above the shore this was the toughest terrain we'd faced since the Rockies. Half way round the bay we were definitely ready for a food stop and you can see how rough the ground was from the photo of Jill perched on a rock for lunch.

Towards the end of this rough section we met a couple with a large, young dog. The dog was not impressed with this walkie and they wisely decided to turn back. Our trail then climbed over steep, rocky ground with more use of hands required as we scrambled up to the top of Acadia Mountain. Acadia is a slightly more respectable 681 feet but the challenging route we'd found gave us much more sense of achievement than climbing any of the higher tops around this part of Maine. The strenuous efforts were also rewarded with the summit to ourselves and fine views back south the way we'd walked and to the east over Somes Sound to Cadillac which we'd climbed previously.

From Acadia we gradually turned south and dropped down close to the road before picking up another trail that took us over the disappointingly tree covered St Sauveur Mountain and on to Valley Peak which did offer fine views of the falling tide to the south. We also noticed the first significant evidence of colour change in the forest (see photo) and across the Sound some very expensive looking waterfront properties - mansions with substantial private jetties. Dropping down from the Peak we were soon back at the car. Other than the slow going along the bay we'd maintained a brisk pace over difficult ground and had put in a fair bit of ascent despite the modest summit heights. We'd made it down in time to head into Southwest Harbor for a cup of tea at Eat-a-pita Cafe 2 where we decided that today's walk was our best hike since the Rockies.

We'd been looking forward to our evening meal at Town Hill Bistro as the place looked very cosy when we'd called in previously. Jill did well picking this place out from the Trip Advisor reviews as the staff were friendly, the ambience was delightful and the locally sourced food was excellent. Jill's salad starter was fresh and her haddock was cooked just right. Dave particularly enjoyed a creamy lobster and shrimp concoction with Israeli Couscous. The chilled bottle of Prosecco went down very well with both choices!