A visit to the Park....on Maine's Largest River.... and a turtle surprise!

The Medway Recreation Complex is at mile 244 off of the Maine Turnpike, which means it is 244 miles from the bridge at Kittery that leads into New Hampshire--Maine being the only State in the Union that borders just one other state. It is at a town called "Medway," because it is between Bangor and the very end of Rt. 95 at mile 306 in Houlton, just before it crosses into Canada and becomes the Trans-Canada Highway.

Medway is kind of known as a Gateway to "The Katahdin Region" that encompasses the massive Baxter State Park surrounding Maine's tallest peak, Mt. Katahdin (elevation 5280'--making it the third highest peak east of the Mississippi,) as well as the Katahdin Wilderness Monument, and several great ponds (you'd probably just call them lakes.) Medway sits on The Penobscott River which is formed by the confluence of its east and west branches just a few miles above the town.

The Medway Recreation Complex is kind of rare for it's sandy beach ON A RIVER rather than on a lake or pond. The Penobscott is Maine's largest river by water volume, and it is quite big in these photos, but gets much, much wider below Bangor before dumping into the Atlantic Ocean.

The highlight of our visit this trip (as it was still too cold to go swimming) was catching this mother turtle in the throes of giving birth to several healthy turtle eggs. We zoomed in for the photos, and were careful not to disturb her, as she finished making her deposit, carefully covered up the nest, and waddled away.

There is a nice trail leading up the north side of the park, upstream, and we hiked up along the river for a bit. There was a nice little "spring bog" created by when the water was high a few weeks back (in fact, it would have been five feet above the beach at that point) and snapped a few pictures up that way, before heading on our way to our summer cottage to the west about 20 miles.

I hope you enjoyed your summer day!

We sure did ours....

From the road leading to the park, you can just see Mount Kathadin in the distance--to the north, about 24 miles...