Biking and Hiking through Portland, ME
During our cruise to Canada and New England, our third port stop was in Portland, Maine. We realized here that this is the first time we have stopped in a ‘normal’ American port. While we have been to Puerto Rico, that still felt different because it was an island. Portland was just a normal East Coast town and it was honestly a great experience!
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Bike and Hike Excursion
We decided to be a little more adventurous in Portland and chose a Bike and Hike excursion through NCL. Unfortunately, it is no longer available so I can’t post a link but hopefully, they bring it back when this itinerary starts up again.
Disembarkation was easy as usual, and once we made it to our group starting position they gave us our assigned bike and helmet. This was also unique for us to have to give body measurements in advance of purchasing and attending this excursion so we could have the right equipment.
Once we were situated, it was time to start our bike ride!
The bike path we used was extremely well maintained and provided some great views of the surrounding water, neighborhoods, and just life near the shore.
It was honestly a very quiet city with little traffic where we were which made a bike ride perfect. We also lucked out and had incredible weather for this late in the season so we didn’t feel too hot or cold while moving around.
Our destination, Mackworth Island State Park, was a little bit less than 5 miles away so the ride itself wasn’t bad at all. Nathan did alright, and since I bike about 10 miles a day anyway this was easy.
Once we made it to the island, we locked up our bikes and walked the perimeter of the island/park. Our guides provided some stories along the way, which is always a great addition to the tour.
First, the actual woods of this island were so beautiful and dense. Camping would be incredible here, and this is just an island!
Second, there is a clearing area where locals will build fairy houses. It may be a little hard to see but any of the little structures you see are from kids and adults building these. There wasn’t a known story as to why, other than it was fun so why not!
About halfway through our hike/walk, they gave us a little snack, which you know I am going to love.
They turned out to be molasses cookies which I had never tried before but they were really good! Almost like a spice cake, just way stronger of a flavor. Apparently, they are quite popular in this area, though I can’t remember or find any specifics as to why other than molasses being easy to get here.
The pathway takes you to the edge of the island and Nathan thought it was fascinating that the forest really does go right up to the water’s edge and then not far from the shore there were ships sailing like there wasn’t land there at all!
The geography of this area was very interesting and beautiful to see and experience.
Now the next part is another bathroom story that is amusing to me, if you don’t care feel free to skip ahead to Duckfat.
So, at the beginning of our hike/walk the guide told us that there weren’t really restrooms. Then he corrected himself and said there was, but he wouldn’t use it himself so he discouraged us from using it as well.
Now this hit two nerves with me. One, how bad could it possibly be? I mean we are in the US at a State Park. I am sure it isn’t a luxury toilet with a bidet and butler to dry your hands, but come on.
Two, I grew up camping and I think I have mentioned this before you can’t tell me no just because I am a girl. I will be as stubborn as hell then and will do it no matter what.
So, now that I have taken this as a personal challenge I must use this toilet now 🤣. Plus, it didn’t hurt that I really did have to go so I didn’t care if it was the worst experience I needed somewhere to go and it was there or the bushes.
I made sure to grab a quick picture so you could all vote for yourselves but this was nowhere near the worst toilet I had ever used.
Yes, it was wood with an exposed area at the top for ventilation and a standard pit toilet which I know some people hate. However, there was plenty of toilet paper which is usually the number one issue in a place like this. Plus it even had a full dispenser of hand sanitizer!
For being a public state park toilet it fit exactly what I would expect, if not a bit better!
So it ended up with a line of 5 or 6 girls who all successfully used the toilet with no issue and every guy skipped it, except for Nathan because he is just as awesome as the rest of us gals 😉.
After our walk, we took the same bike path back to the cruise and we were done! All in all, it was a great excursion being active, seeing a few new places, and being out in nature which we really need to do more of at home.
Duckfat
Now that we were back in port we decided to meet up with MIL/FIL and go to a local restaurant for a late lunch. Plus we needed to eat somewhere not only because we were starving but I didn’t want to count a cookie as our ‘meal’ for this new location.
Before the cruise, I had found a local place called Duckfat (website here) that seemed like a fun and unique place. Plus they had poutine which we were trying to get as often as we could on this trip (which weirdly turned out to be hard to find).
This place was sooo good! Their ‘thing’ is to cook everything in duck fat, which I don’t know if I could really taste a difference per se but their food was amazing so maybe that is why 🤷🏼♀️.
We ordered their fries, sauce flight, poutine, grilled cheese, and donut holes. Plus a cookies and cream milkshake because why not?!
Their fry portions are huge! We tried to share with the table but I think I ended up eating most of them and still didn’t finish them all. Nathan had the poutine covered and said it was the best version he had on the trip.
The grilled cheese was great as well, but we ordered that mostly to have some amount of ‘real’ food with the rest of our treats.
While the fries were amazing, the donut holes are what I crave to this day. Though to be fair it was the duck-fat caramel dipping sauce that was heavenly! I could have just eaten that and been so happy but the donuts were really good as well! I didn’t want to share those and thankfully the table let me eat the majority of them.
Mmmmmm who wants to go to Portland, ME? I am hungry! 😋
Portland really was a great place to visit. I am honestly not sure that we missed a lot here as it is a pretty small town from what I could tell. However, I would happily stop by here again and either repeat activities or do some self-exploration to see what else we can find!
If you would like to read more about this trip, here are some quick links for you!
Sights of Halifax
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