Mer did arrange to have dinner with her friend Julie and her family, on Thursday. So, we swapped days so that Wednesday was “my” day. I wanted to take a hike, but several of the hikes I looked at were either very difficult, or very far away. After a little online research, I found out that the southern coastal town of Oqunquit had a mile-and-a-quarter-long paved trail called “The Marginal Way” that was right on the ocean. In addition, the town was supposed to be charming, so I settled on Oqunquit as our destination for the day.
Oqunquit is very far south in Maine, only a few miles from New Hampshire, and a good thirty or more miles south of Portland. It is on Route 1, and is very much a tourist-driven town. We got there late morning, and found a good municipal parking lot to park in, near the center of town and very close to the beach. Food seemed like a good first order of the day, so we wandered toward one of the main streets and found a restaurant called The Wild Blueberry. We were both in the mood for breakfast, so it seemed a good pick. For some odd reason, Oqunquit has a town law forbidding restaurants from serving guests on their decks, so we had to eat inside, even though it was a beautiful day. The food was good, albeit about fifty percent more expensive than it should have been, but that is the cost of eating in a tourist town.
After breakfast, we walked over to the Marginal Way path. Once we got to the ocean, I was shocked at what I saw. From the start of the walkway, you could see Oqunquit’s beach. I had no idea that Maine had such beaches. Most of Maine’s coast (and many of the lake shores) is all rock, with little or no sand. Oqunquit had a huge sandy beach that ran north to the town of Wells, where the beach continued. In fact, Oqunquit’s beach was a small island joined to the town by a small bridge, so the beach actually wrapped around the southern part of the island. Even though there were lots of people on the beach, the beach was so large it did not appear crowded. I was amazed.
The Marginal Way itself was no less a happy find. It wound along a rocky section of coast that had a couple of very small beaches along the way. The path itself was very easy since it was paved, and it climbed gently to a high point that had a good view. The rocks of the coast were immediately accessible from the path, so Mer and I clambered around a few rocks. There were many small hotels and rental beach houses facing up against the path, but there were also some very beautiful private homes that commanded spectacular views of the coast. The path ended (going south) in a little coastal grove of trees, and finally in a parking lot with a few restaurants about. Mer and I walked it to the southern end, and then returned the way we came, taking a short detour to explore one of the mini-beaches, where we both waded into the fairly cold Maine ocean.
Once we got back to the northern end of the trail, we walked a block through town and took a footpath and bridge over to the main road bridge that led to the island-beach. The beach is very low-lying, so that I think much of it must disappear at high tide. The sand goes out very gently, as far as I could tell. Mer waded in the ocean again since she always wears easy-off sandals. By then, it was late in the afternoon, so we headed back to the car and started heading back north along Route 1.
On the way into town we had seen an ice cream stand called Sundaes on the Beach, and we decided to stop there on the way out of town. Sundaes on the Beach has an interesting business model: you order your ice cream, and then you can top in any way you like from a small but good sundae bar. We had seen similar places that worked with yogurt, but never anywhere that used ice cream instead. We were both pretty pleased by the concept, and we were happy to have stopped. After our snack-break, we headed back home.