11th & 12th July....Mackinac Island & Mackinaw City, MI....

Our ride to Mackinac Island....
It's a grey morning but does brighten up later on....tomorrow should be sunnier but very windy and I'm not a great sailor !!!

It was a very pleasant half hour boat ride with a good view of the Mackinac Bridge, I'm sparing you yet more photos of it !!!
The Bois Blanc Lighthouse guarding the harbour of Mackinac Island...

One of the colourful houses on the island...some of the old houses have been converted to small hotels or condos but some are still privately owned...

There are no vehicles on the island...transport is bicycle or horse drawn carriages or as we did "shank's pony" we had a lovely walk along the shoreline to the bottom of the 207 yes 207 steps up to Arch Rock.....

The shoreline of The Mackinac Straits from Arch Rock....

We walked the woodland bike trail back into town....our songs for here could be either A Bicycle Made For Two or more appropriately 9 Million Bicycles In Beijing !!! 

View from The Mackinac Fort area...

Another of the original buildings....

And of course the library....

The Grand Hotel....taken from the ferry back to the mainland...
Sadly for us, and I know we are tourists, the authenticity is being lost due to the vast amount of people, bicycles and horses...not really our thing...

Tuesday 12th July....
Today we head back across The Bridge to Mackinaw City..
First stop the visitors centre then a walk through the pretty park along the beach to The Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse......

Next stop is The McCulpin Lighthouse....

And a half mile walk to the McCulpin Rock....it was a nice walk and a nice beach but we did think "is this it" but in kindness the lake is high at the moment so a lot of the rock is below surface....

Heritage Village...
This is an interesting and on going project to renovate and preserve old buildings from the area...

Part of downtown Mackinaw City....

And our last stop for today is at the Icebreaker Mackinaw Maritime Museum..
Fantastic, brilliant volunteer guides, loads of information and really interesting.....
The Mackinaw was built in 1944 and not decommissioned until 2006...
The Straits between the Great Lakes freeze over in the winter, the icebreakers keep channels open for most of the winter for the big bulk carriers....
Mackinaw City virtually closes down in the winter with most folks living in Cheboygan 20 miles farther south...talking to Joe one of our guides he says most winters because the straits freeze over they can go across to Mackinac Island on their snowmobiles...

The view from our campsite this morning as we prepare to move onto Manisitque, Michigan....we have been trying to fit in the country song Saginaw Michigan (Lefty Frizzell) we often hear on the radio and now we can as our neighbours are from there !!!! Other neighbours are from San Antonio but that's another story...
For now it's goodnight from...
The Singing Campers....