Maine (near Augusta) camping on a lake/island?
September 2, 2010 10:22 AM   Subscribe

Maine (near Augusta) camping on a lake/island?

My boyfriend and I are going to be up at his cabin in Manchester, ME (near Augusta) the week before the Common Ground Fair and want to trailer the aluminum boat (with motor and trolling motor) to a campsite to test it out.

Unfortunately, his family is selling the cabin and we will be trailing the boat out for the first time so we thought it would make sense to camp somewhere relatively in the vicinity and trailer the boat there as a sort of test run.

Are there any freshwater islands that we can camp on? Ideally, somewhere we can park, get the boat in the water (boat is not too heavy but not light enough to port all that far) and then take the boat somewhere to camp. We plan to be coming back in the future sometimes with or without the boat to camp in ME (we are from MA) so suggestions outside of these specifics would be greatly appreciated as well.

For context I am relatively new to camping, but my boyfriend is not at all (he camped for a couple months up in Canada at one point and I have camped once with a pack). We both fish and he can fly fish. Ideally, the less crowded/more secluded the better, but I am realistic as well. Thanks for any help you can give.
posted by Carialle to Travel & Transportation around Maine (3 answers total)
 
Swan Island in Richmond might meet your needs. It's only very recently open to the public. You'd need to check with them to see if you can camp there a full week though.
posted by mneekadon at 11:12 AM on September 2, 2010


Best answer: Is their cabin on Cobbosseeconte? Or on another body of water?

Swan is beautiful, but Richmond is kinda far from Manchester (and not connected by water, I don't think). Swan is in the middle of the Kennebec River, and is a terrific place to camp, however.

I have friends who say nice things about The Birches, which is on Cobbosseeconte, but is not on an island. There are a couple of huge islands in the middle of Cobbosseeconte, but they're very sparsely populated. I think they are probably privately owned, and they don't have auto access.

August West is in Winthrop, and is on Annabessacook Lake.

Google only shows one campground actually in Manchester, which is called Armstrong Camps, but I can't find much more info about them. They don't have a website.

There is a decent KOA in Richmond, with access to Pleasant Pond.
posted by anastasiav at 11:45 AM on September 2, 2010


Response by poster: Yes the cabin is on Cobboseeconte, it did not appear as though you can camp on any of the islands on it, but that would be ideal. I will definitely have to check out Swan Island.
posted by Carialle at 12:42 PM on September 5, 2010


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