Hike #1103; Bristol to Neshaminy Mall

Hike #1103; Bristol to Neshaminy Mall

1/20/18 Bristol to Neshaminy Mall with Craig Craig, Brandan Jermyn, Jennifer Berndt, Captain Soup (David Campbell), Eric Pace, Jim Mathews (Mr. Buckett), Justin Gurbisz, Brittany Audrey, Laura Nycum, Red Sean Reardon, Sy P. Deunom (Martyn), Mike Heaney, John Pershouse, Major Tom Conroy, D., and Kathy Butler.

Our next hike I posted as “Neshaminy Creek Part 2”, as a follow up to the previous hike we did recently. Actually, this hike would be more of a repeat of that one with an alternate route, beginning and ending at the same location but with some new stuff.

End of Delaware Canal, Bristol

There was still so much to see since the previous hike we’d done. I didn’t want to just step to the next section. Not when there are still so many park lands we hadn’t walked. Besides, we had a small group and not everyone got to experience Neshaminy Brewery like I’d wanted them to. So, we decided to do this other version.
Also, Martyn wasn’t able to attend the previous one, and it was because he and Craig travel so far for our other hikes that I posted this. We have many friends in the Philly area that travel to come out with us, and the area is still ripe with stuff to explore, so I want to make some of them convenient for them.

Old Maple Beach Road

We met at the same point as the last one, at the Neshaminy Mall on the west side. Once again, Meetup.com screwed us over because their directions were sending people all over the place. Jen ended up like ten miles east of where we were supposed to be, and Mike had similar problem, only he put the location into google maps manually, and his phone changed it to “via meetup” which screwed him up. The site really needs to change their pinned locations or they’re going to lose everything. It’s just getting to be too frustrating.

Neshaminy Creek map

I was getting text message after text message from everyone running anywhere from fifteen minutes to forty five minutes behind. We waited around for people to make it to us, and eventually were under way to our starting point in Bristol.
Fortunately, the carpool to the start didn’t go badly at all. Red Sean opted to meet us there and catch up, which worked out just fine. He wasn’t really more than fifteen minutes behind us actually. We took a little time to look at the southern terminus of the Delaware Canal (Pennsylvania Canal, Delaware Division) at the former site of Lock #1.

Delaware Canal Lock #1 historic view

There’s very little left of the canal at this point. Most of the Delaware Canal remains in good shape today, except the section in Bristol is mostly filled in. This was an incredibly important site for transportation and industry starting in 1827. Bristol was originally called Buckingham when it was settled in 1681, named for Buckingham, England. The growth, however, really started happening with the canal. It’s heyday was up until around 1855 when railroads began to take over for the canals. In those early years, Bristol was a major boat building town.

Historic Lock #1 image

The Delaware Canal was a regular mule drawn canal like others, which traveled north to Easton PA. There, travel was possible up the Lehigh Canal to the west and north, and across New Jersey on the Morris Canal. In New Hope, two locks and slack water in the Delaware made possible travel across and into Delaware and Raritan Canal, to New Brunswick.
Like the previous hikes we’d been doing on the Lehigh Canal and area around it, this canal was used much for hauling the hard anthracite coal from the mines to the major markets, being New York and Philly. Bristol was only about a half hour travel time from Philly.
Boats would lock out of the Delaware Canal to the tidal Delaware River at Bristol, and then tug boats would take them down stream to Philadelphia. There, boats could make use of the Schuykill Navigation System, another series of canals and slack water pools.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/CinviAVC5jY

When we pulled into the parking area, I started singing “The Bristol Stomp”, which I was surprised no one else had ever even heard of.
The Bristol area was even the subject of a hit song by The Dovells in 1961 (though it was recorded by Terry and the Applejacks). Chubby Checker also did a version of the song a year after the original. I grew up hearing it on the radio, long before I’d been to Bristol.

Old Maple Beach Road bridge

From Lock #1 site, we walked across and to the start of Maple Beach Road, where the beat up old bridge took us across the Mill Creek.
The abandoned road is supposed to become part of the East Coast Greenway, although I’ve also heard since our last hike here that there is some plan to put an Amazon warehouse and headquarters or something in the same area. There are also plans for a park and boat launch.
We crossed the bridge, then stepped over a giant bump, to continue along the old road.

Maple Beach Road bridge

There was once a major development down along the Delaware at Maple Beach.
Maple Beach was a development purchased by Rohm and Haas, a mostly chemical company, in 1917. There were once twenty seven or so houses and a grid of a few streets at Maple Beach. The beach itself, and apparently “Lake Adeline”, was created by Rohm and Hass in 1917 for their employee social activities. Today, we have only noted three houses from the entire Maple Beach community still standing, as well as one garage.

Historic image at Maple Beach

We continued ahead to a fork in the road, and I waited back for Red Sean to catch up with us. There is an abandoned building on the left, which is some sort of old pumping station I told everyone to wait up for us at.

Old Maple Beach Road

Red Sean arrived pretty quickly, and we soon reached the building, where Justin and Brittany were already climbing up onto the roof.
I was already glad we were repeating this section, because when we did it before it had started snowing and we really couldn’t get the best views of the Delaware River and landscape.
This was a really great group. Brandan mentioned right from the start that it was like a time warp. So many old friendly faces that hadn’t been together in a while were all out together again.

The Delaware at Maple Beach

Brandan hadn’t been out since the Summer himself. Major Tom hadn’t done any of the hikes in a long while, and Mr. Buckett and Eric have been coming out for over a decade each.
Pershouse has been coming out for nearly a decade, and Captain Soup has been out about the a decade, but hadn’t seen those others in a while himself.
We hung out at this point for just a little bit before moving on to the west. There was a berm along the river for flood protection at this point, and we could walk that for a bit.

Abandoned thing

There were logs and junk that Justin was throwing off of the roof of the building into the ice below while we chatted.
We moved on from this point along the berm, then down to the old Maple Beach Road, which becomes vehicle accessible in this area, but only to residents.
We passed the three remaining houses on the right at Maple Beach, some of them pretty nice, but some of them with some obvious damage, probably from flooding. I pointed out to everyone where the homes used to be.

Climbin and throwin

There was a pole line from another block to the west and another former connecting street heading toward it along the way.
We headed out to the intersection at the end of the development, and Red Sean found another piece of rope, which looked like it was part of the same length he’d made a noose out of when last we were there, so he took it with him.
We had some really good views of the Burlington-Bristol Bridge, much clearer this time because it had just started snowing the last time we’d gone by.

Delaware view

Much clearer this time we could see the Doane Academy, founded in 1837 by George Washington Doane, who championed the cause of equal education for women. The chapel building, built in 1847, still stands and is connected with other buildings.

Burlington Bristol Bridge

The Burlington Bristol Bridge has an uncommon lift action in the central span, which is antiquated and is one of the reasons it’s replacement was called for many times.

There was a toll booth in the middle when the bridge opened

If the bridge were to be replaced, there is an industrial site, as well as other historic structures in the way. A new bridge would have to connect with nearby Rt 130, and it’d be a political uproar to do anything about it, so the bridge remains.
I pointed out the same highway sign as we approached the bridge from the previous time, now with trees growing all through it.
The Burlington- Bristol Bridge broke ground in April of 1930, and opened to traffic in May of 1931.
It is sixty one feet high at the center, and 2,301 feet long. Unfortunately, pedestrians are not allowed to cross it. When it first opened, it was allowed, but was removed some time later.

Old road sign

We headed beneath the bridge, and this time we could see some contractors equipment around. Brandan of course wanted his photo taken with the one that read “Super Unit” on it.
The road system of Maple Beach continued on the other side, around a corner. This is where there is one garage remaining, and this time I also noted that there was a flag pole still standing in an open field section. We continued along the old roadway that followed the Delaware downstream as we had done before.

Super Unit

Everything was smooth for the next section. We followed along the woods road, through a fence, and then out across the power line crossing we had gone over the last time.
On that trip, we attempted to go ahead, but then gave up in favor of taking to the inland and out to the nearest road. This time, we were well timed with low tide and there was a ton of ice on the shore, so I figured we just might be able to get all the way to the Neshaminy State Park boat launch without too much trouble.

Generation station in Burlington NJ

We followed the path from the access road out to the small stream inlet that flows from near Dow Chemical. It was easy enough to get across it with the ice jam backup. It had been freezing cold, but this day was quite warm, so the ice was breaking up and was heaved all along the shore like crazy. They seemed almost like arranged piles at times. We got out to the waterfront and at first could walk along the low tide rocks and pebbles, but we were soon forced to walk on the chunks of ice. Much of it was melted beneath with hard tops, so it was tough to tell if we were stepping on a good surface or if it would break through.

Icy shore

This section was slow going and really draining. Everyone did pretty good going over it, but I think most of us took a fall one or more times. Laura was doing really well because she’d worn these high rubber boots, so much of the time she just walked in the water of the Delaware like it was nothing.
Red Sean got a giant chunk of ice and threw it into the creek so those who had some trouble getting across could just use that to get over without getting wet. It was really the only bad inlet.

Icy shore

We continued down stream with good views of the Burlington Generation Station, and back to the Burlington Bristol Bridge. We then came to a wider flood plain, and were much nearer to the fences of an industrial area or something.
It was a pretty wide open stretch to have to get through, but we managed to do it. It was kind of muddy and not at all easy walking. Most everyone tried to go the crappy way I did, but most went inland a bit after that. We all managed to get around, and then there was a tight spot near the chain link fences of the industry. A security guard drove by twice while we were clearly visible in this area, but clearly they didn’t care.

Mr. Buckett and Eric were furthest back, but still handling the tough terrain of ice pretty well. It was other worldly going through the mess.
The next section was about the worst. It was a narrow shore line, and the tide wasn’t low enough to provide any easy walking. We just had to go along the rocks, which was horrible.
We tried to remain on the rocks for the short stretch toward the boat launch, and I told Major Tom not to walk up by the fence line, but pretty soon everyone was doing just that anyway.

Taking a break

When so many others were doing it, I just went up and we hurriedly followed it downstream. We had to duck and go under a dock bridge associated with the industry, climb back up, and then came to a door at the end of the fence. There was a good path that went down around the edge of a fence, and we could see the free public boat dock just beyond. This was part of Neshaminy State Park, but not connected with the main body of the park on the other side of the confluence with the Neshaminy Creek. There was a giant concrete base to an old ship beacon there, and we all sat and rested on that after the arduous walk.

Ghetto basketball

Eric didn’t want to go around the rough section but Mr. Buckett talked him into it. This would be the toughest part of the whole hike, and Eric was fine after we got out of that mess.
We all took a break and then walked out to the boat ramp. We had to use the access road to get back out of the park, because it was all fenced in and there looked to be a private marina on the one side. We emerged on 2nd Avenue in Croydon, which wasn’t really run down, but also not rich by any means. We noted a totally ghetto basketball hoop utilizing a piece of plywood and an old milk crate.

At Neshaminy Brewing

The area was reportedly an historic crossing dating back to early settlement, in the late 1600s. Croydon is unincorporated community of Bristol. It apparently takes it’s name from the ancestral homeland of Major Thomas Barnsley, a British officer who came to America with Lord Loudon in 1756 to serve with him in the French and Indian War. Records of the area refer to it as the “Tatham Plantation”, but Major Barnsley called it “Croydon”. Most of the houses we passed didn’t look too old, more 20th century I think.

Neshaminy Brewery

The timing worked out really well to arrive at the Neshaminy Brewing Company. The previous time we were too early and had to loop around the nearby state park. Our trek along the ice took so much time that it postponed our arrival enough to be perfect.

At Neshaminy brewing

We turned right on Miller Ave to Cedar Ave to get over to the brewery, which was just opening. Hardly anyone was there yet, but they soon started to siphon in.
Craig took the lead on ordering us some food from a nearby pizza place, and we ended up getting about three pies of stuff, including taco pizza which was great.
I tried some 10% abv drink that I don’t quite recall the name of, but it was alright. That was all I had while at the brewery. I’d already had some Crazy Brewski earlier, and so I was feeling pretty good. That’s probably why I didn’t notice that I’d hurt my bad shoulder. I’d fallen one time pretty bad on the ice, but didn’t notice how much I hurt until the next day at work.
Red Sean was probably the most disappointed that the hot young girls that served us the previous time were not present, and in their place were overweight, balding, bearded men.

Neshaminy Brewery

I ate entirely too much pizza and such. Not everyone was able to finish their food, and so I ended up gording myself with leftovers that no one wanted to bring on the trail with them. I ended up feeling completely bloated for the entire remainder of the hike, which was rough.
We had two more newcomers join us at the brewery section, Kathy Butler and her husband. Her husband didn’t do too much distance with us, but Kathy continued on for many miles. We followed along Cedar Ave to cross under the railroad tracks at Croydon Station. We then turned left on the other side to follow Bristol Pike a bit.

Mirror group shot

On the previous trip, we turned to the right on Neshaminy Road to follow the east side of the creek, but this time we’d continue ahead a bit more, and cross over the creek.
The crossing took us from Croydon over to the Bensalem side. The creek was quite wide at this point, with homes along it.
Bensalem is likely named after a manor house that took the name from a piece of fiction, an island named Bensalem tagged as “New Atlantis” by an early aristocratic settler, or even maybe because of a nearby “Salem” name. We didn’t see a whole lot of historic buildings in this section though.

The Neshaminy

Once on the other side of the creek, there was a spot on the right with a section of railroad rails on an elevated trestle. At first, it looked like an old coal trestle, but then I soon realized it was a mock up. The boards used on it were far too small to ever support a train of any kind. It did make me wonder why such a thing would be built. It couldn’t hold an authentic car even for display if they wanted to. We continued past that and my intention was to turned to the right on Maple Ave, but I think we missed it and went straight.

Non railroad trestle

We went beneath Interstate 95, then turned right on Bensalem Blvd, then left on Trace Road. I recall we were able to walk along the edges of apartment buildings or something on their walkways, and then cut the corner at the end of the road to get out to Bridgewater Road where we went left.
From here, I was hoping to cut through more industrial complex building lands, but that didn’t work out. I tried watching my phone GPS, which wasn’t keeping up with time all that well, and I made one wrong turn where we had to turn back. The planned route was to follow it to Byberry Road.

Dam at Bensalem High School

We eventually got on the correct route, and ended up at Byberry. We went straight across and into a school yard to it’s north side. This wasn’t along the Neshaminy Creek yet, but there wasn’t a good way through, so this short road walk I’d picked out would give us good sections of off road walking before getting us there the way I had it planned out. Justin and Brittany fell behind after a rest on the school yard lands, and opted to cut the hike short at this point.
The rest of us continued on along the north side, at the tree line, to an old dam ruin. There was a foot bridge below it which took us to Bensalem Township High School.

Resurrection Cemetery

We headed to the east side of the school yard, with hopes that we’d be able to get through and right out to Hulmeville Road, but such was not the case. We had to cut back to the west to get to the road via the main entrance.
The stretch of road to the road was mostly near homes on it, with one old farm house, which that specific label on it, to the right. We continued down the road until we reached Resurrection Cemetery on the right, where we were able to go around the fence and get to the south side of the property.

Old road out of the cemetery

We followed along the cemetery roads to the east for a bit, until we got to the far east side. From there, we found a gate that led into a trail system I had intended to use. In order to reach it, we had to bushwhack around the south side of the fence line. The connection to the trails was a really muddy road, which was kind of unpleasant, but we made the best of it. The road led away from the cemetery, and then the foot path broke off to the right in a short while, when the road went up and to some sort of a clearing.

Trail heading east

In retrospect, I should have kept with the woods road. It went out to the same place we were going, but we didn’t know it at the time because I couldn’t see the route clearly on my maps on my phone.
Still, we followed a pretty nice foot path down hill and along a tributary to the Neshaminy Creek in a bit more of a bucolic setting. The mud was tough to walk through, and many of us fell down in it. We had to climb over some fallen trees, but we made due. Eventually, the foot path made it’s way back to the woods road to the east.

Along the trail

We had one really steep area to make our way down, and I took a mighty fall. I got so much mud caked onto my pants that I had to stand in the water and peel it off using my hand like a butter kife, washing it off, and repeating several times. It was funny, but extremely unpleasant, and it remained uncomfortable for the remainder of the hike. I looked like I had the most massive explosion of diarrhea of all time. The truth is, my stomach was still hurting so badly from taco pizza, I wished it actually had been.

The Neshaminy

Kathy decided to cut out as we reached a field section very close to our next road, Bensalem Blvd.
The rest of us continued across, and then Eric and John also decided they were going to Uber out.
The rest of us continued down hill into what was called “Armstrong Park” on one of the rocks, directly along the shore of the Neshaminy.
It was good to finally really be walking along the creek for which the theme of the hike was supposed to be about. We were always within the watershed or it’s tributaries, but the southern end of it is really pretty hard to access.

At Armstrong Park

The word “Neshaminy” comes from the Lenape word 'Nesha-men-ning', which loosely means “place where we drink” twice, and refers to a palisades in what is now Dark Hollow Park upstream, where the creek almost doubles back on itself.
Several other variations were applied to the creek over the years, including Nishambanach (1671), Nichmink, Nishammis (1679), Nishmines (1680), Neshimineh (1682), Neshamineh (1686), Neshaminia (1688), Neshamenah (1702), and more.

Armstrong Park

We waited around for just a little bit to figure out who was coming and who was going, and Mr. Buckett decided to stay with us and finish out the hike after talking to Eric. He and Pershouse were going to head to Neshaminy Mall and hang out there a bit.
The park had a good paved trail in it going up stream, with a few river access points that were quite pretty. Looking at the other side, I could see where we had explored on the previous trip.
We checked out an observation deck to the right briefly, then continued up stream.

Along the Neshaminy

The paved trail was like an old road, but I moved on closer to the edge of the waterway to have some better views. It was getting later, but we still had enough light for it to be worth it.
We continued by some areas of steps and such, and remained along the creek until the mowed grass ended. We then got on the trail, which weaved inland a bit, curved to the right, and passed through more woods until it was cut off by a giant pile of dirt, which it appeared ATVs had been going across. This must have at one time been a through road to New Falls Road. After the pile, there was more road heading up.

The trail

When the road went up hill, we continued along the Neshaminy Creek along a foot path to the right. It was a very pretty section, which took us out beneath New Falls Road.
The trail continued on the other side and up along the creek. It weaved around a bit, and was really the most pleasant section of the entire hike.
Across from us was the village of Newportville, which we passed by on the previous hike.
Soon, we made our way to the PA Turnpike, and the trail passed beneath that as well.

New Falls Road bridge

We passed a sign that read “no swimming” and “crocodiles”. We saw one of the locals out there on the trail, and he commented something about there being crocodiles out there jokingly.
There was some interesting graffiti under the bridge when we passed under the PA Turnpike, including a Super Mario Bros. Goomba and Alf.
The trail continued in another scenic section to the north as the Neshaminy Creek made it’s way around a bit of a bend. The section ended at a section of road which I believe was called Canoe Road. We had to cut out ot the pavement at that point, unfortunately.

New Falls Road bridge

There was another dead end street going just a bit to the north, bu tit wasn’t looking good for following the creek. There is some kind of day camp ahead that I thought we might get through, but we opted not to try it. Daylight was running short, and we needed to get back to Neshaminy Mall.
We followed the connection Fulton Ave west, which took us out to Bensalem Blvd. We turned to the right from here heading north.
We followed the road to the north and west for a bit, and cut into Beechwood Cemetery.

Beware of Crocodiles...

We were able to follow the edge of the cemetery up to Hulmeville Road. This is where we connected with the route of the previous Neshaminy Hike, and pretty much where we will have to pick up on the next one. Hulmeville, the historic little town across the river, is where we had to leave off the previous time. I found a route that will work for us on the next trip where we’ll continue on the other side of the Neshaminy Creek up stream.
This time, we’d have to continue along streets and such to get to Neshaminy Mall.

The Neshaminy

Fortunately, I remembered pretty much exactly how we did this on the previous hike. My phone was just about dead, so there was no relying on that to get me through.
We headed directly across on Bensalem Blvd, which shifted from going northwest to due west. We followed it as far as Donallen Blvd, where we regrouped.
It was starting to get dark, and I knew the way we had gone the previous time would be good for us to break up the road walking and get us back maybe a little more direct than on the roads.

Underside of the turnpike

We turned right, heading northwest from the corner with Donallen, and passed by the Bensalem Township School. When we got to the slope in back, we climbed to the back, and made our way to a pathway between fences that leads out to the developments on Independence Court. Mr. Buckett I believe cut out at this point, and Martyn and Craig went back to find him at first, but then we got in contact on the phone and found out that Pershouse and Eric had come and picked him up. Newcomer Dee was not able to handle any more steps at this point and she left with Mr. Buckett as well, but she did pretty good otherwise. The rest of us then continued on through the development.

Goomba and Alf under the PA Turnpike

We followed Independence Court to Pasqualone Blvd and cut across on an angle. It was totally dark by this time.
We cut the corner and paralleled Gilbert Drive briefly, and got on a sidewalk adjacent to an apartment building. We walked down steps, then headed to the north on another sidewalk that went directly between more of the apartment buildings where there were no roads. We passed four large buildings on the left, and six smaller ones on the left before the sidewalk turned abruptly to the right.

We turned sharply to the left, then sharply to the right on another sidewalk that went up hill to the north.
We emerged at some sort of community center to the left, so we followed the parking lot and ended up out on Neshaminy Blvd heading to the west.
It wasn’t all that far to Neshaminy Mall on this road section, but it seemed to go on for too long, just because I was tired. We managed to get through it, and reached the southeast corner of the mall property pretty quickly.

Neshaminy

We made our way then to the northwest and headed toward the mall. We walked into the corner, which was the Boscov’s.
It was so strange to see the inside, with so many people and such, pretty much all fake. I noted that there was nothing but artificial environment everywhere we looked in there.
We exited the overly bright Boscov’s and headed to the main mall section and tried to find a good way out.
We wandered through the rest of the mall pretty easily toward the west side.

Sidewalk route in apartments

My stomach was still killing me from lunch. Martyn had an amazing dinner plan for everyone that I just wouldn't be able to enjoy because I wasn’t feeling well.
We made our way out by the Barnes and Noble to where our cars were parked.
I felt bad for Brandan, because he had to miss out on dinner too because he had ridden with me. We’d have to go and visit the place Martyn had in mind again another time I suppose.
The day went pretty well, and the next one in the series promises to be at least as good.
My plan for the next one involves a lot of back streets and such in addition to some park lands. It will take us to the areas I’ve already explored just below Newtown.
As long as interest in the area keeps up, the next ones look to be quite good.