Day 64 North Conway to Portsmouth

After breakfasting and sending our final blog, making us up to date at that point, we headed off for the state of Maine. Once again driving on the lesser roads, we enjoyed more lovely scenery and slower pace.

The strong scent of the sea signalled our arrival in Kennebunkport. Lots of lovely homes that would be in the million plus dollar category. The town is most noted for the Bush Family Compound on Walker Point (yes, we mean George W and co). He even has a huge anchor as a memorial to him. We took the obligatory photos of the compound, even though the sun was not in quite the right positon.

Heading around the coast a little we came to the historic St Anne's Church. It is not a big church but it is quite a sturdy rock building with lovely stained glass windows.

We then headed further down the coast road in search of a good place to have a Maine Lobster lunch. We decided the prices in Kennebunkport maybe a little inflated (reminded us of Noosa with lots of little boutique style shops and well-dressed people roaming the streets).

We drove through Wells and stopped at the information centre to ask about places to see and best place for lobster. With the recommendation for Mike's Clam Shack (we had also read a review on the internet for this restaurant) and directions to drive there, we set off.

We both chose the lunch special of New England Clam Chowder and 1 1/8Pound lobster with coleslaw and chips. Both were lovely. As we were staying in a share house for the night we decided to get some clam chowder to take with us and heat up for dinner.

We then continued our drive along the coastline of Ogonquit. We were interested in the fact that the same types of trees and bushes grow right up to the coastal shores as grow inland, in comparison to home where coastal plants tend to be different to inland plants.

We arrived in Portsmouth and went to Strawberry Banke. This is an enclosed area of old historic homes which you can go through. There are people in costume in the homes who can answer questions about the original owners and history of the house and area. As there is an entry fee and there was only about 45 minutes left before closing we just looked in from outside the fenced area.

Across the road was Prescott Gardens which Tripadvisor reviewed quite favourably. It was not what we expected. Only one small area of fenced garden in a large park on the riverbank.

We then headed for our accommodation for the night. All I will say is this was the most disappointing of accommodations we had stayed in so far this trip. It was an older home shared by a number of younger persons. It needs some work tidying it up and some TLC (eg the bedroom door was missing its internal handle). We had the master bedroom and a large bathroom. We had a good night's sleep and we departed early. We would not be giving this AirB&B a great review. I suppose that it balances out the great AirB&Bs that we have stayed in so far (eg Stowe).