A Gorgeous Garden and Maine USA

A piper was on hand to see us off from The Algonquin (heavily tipped by Merryle) and we drove to the nearby picturesque village of St Andrews by the Sea to cruise up and down the streets taking photos of the many churches - at least six which seems a lot for a town of 2000 full-time inhabitants. Then on to the Kingsbrae Horticultural Garden which has that name rather than 'Botanical' because it aims to be a garden to experience rather than a collection of named plants.

Bill and I experienced it by nicking off from the main group and starting at the bottom where we could have free rein without all the other keen photographers. What a fabulous garden! It's divided into rooms from formal parterres to conifer to blue flowers to eating, one called Sense and Sensitivity for the visually impaired featuring things like lambs ears and non-edible rhubarb (never heard of that before) and a fantastic children's garden where they are encouraged to play around and eat the exhibits.

Val and I found the statue garden, full of great art works and guarded by a ginger tom whom I was chasing when I got stuck in a bog - punishment: muddy shoes for the rest of the day (while ginger tom laughed from under a bush. )

The garden has a huge Friends of the Garden who volunteer as guides, weeders, diggers and morning tea providers for busloads of Australians. They were very proud to show us their Wollemi Pine, the first in Northern America, and usually kept in a cage but freed for us to see. Morning tea was pretty good- blueberry cake was excellent. This could be called the blueberry holiday as they are a recurring motif.

Back on the bus and heading to the Canadian / USA border with strict instructions from Merryle to toe the line and not try any jokes: these guys don't have a sense of humour unless they're making the jokes. It was more intensive than going through Los Angeles!! Third degree almost for some of us and Ross and Julie told they were illegal immigrants because a green stub had been left in their passports from a year ago. David and I were quick as we went through LA 15 days ago. It was a feeling of relief for all of us to get through the checkpoint and enter unscathed into the US.

Merryle was hard-put to find a lunch place and the only possible place, the Nook and Cranny Restaurant turned out to be a little gem. You wouldn't look twice as you drive past and 'restaurant' is a misnomer - more of a 'hole in the wall' - but they had the place decorated for fall, sandwiches on the table followed by homemade chicken soup and - SURPRISE - blueberry cobbler. Only one toilet, the last one before Bar Harbor.

One more stop for us photographers to get the fields of low-growing wild blueberries whose foliage covers the landscape in brilliant red. I took a photo of how we spread out and hog the roadside in our quest for photos.

The rest of the trip to Bar Harbor was on a beautiful back road through green fields and golden woods, past poor-looking farms which proved a huge contrast to the sumptuous rich houses of Bar Harbor along Millionaires' Row where our hotel, the Harborside is situated. We've all got seaview rooms overlooking the harbour, a special treat for the last nights.

Dinner tonight is a lobster dinner and a unanimous decision that Maine lobsters are sweeter and nicer than Canadian. I don't want to say that as I loved Canada but maybe it's only down to the style of cooking.