Hike #1107; Neshaminy Part 3

Hike #1107: Neshaminy Part 3

2/17/18 Penndel/Hulmeville to Woodside with Sy P. Deunom (Martyn), Craig Craig, Justin Gurbisz, Dan Asnis, Robert Gearhardt, Cory, John Pershouse, Jim “Uncle Soup” Campbell, Captain Soup (David Campbell), Laura Nycum, Kevin Kowalick, Dave Goldberg, Paras, Renata Stosik, ?, Nicole Waker, Ryan Yan, Michelle Bradley, and Natalia Gokhman.

This next hike, the third since I “rebooted” the Neshaminy Creek series, would turn out to be quite outstanding in my opinion. The others were really great, but this one really made it most clear to me why I do these kinds of hikes.

Taddei Woods

There’s just too much stuff to do in all of these areas, and this was getting to the point where arranging the route of the hike could get to be difficult. I wanted to get the mileage in, I wanted to see the entire Neshaminy Creek, but I also didn’t want to pass up so many different parks I’d likely never come back to see otherwise. So, I put together a hike that was really something different, as usual, and incorporated some other parks in the watershed.
We focused on not only the Neshaminy, but some tributaries, like Core Creek Park.

Taddei Woods

Justin carpooled with me from Washington. The weather was looking good, and snow was to come some time late in the day. It ended up being quite perfect.
We headed down to Yardley Pa area, to a neighborhood known as Woodside, where I arranged the meeting point at a King’s supermarket. The store kind of sucks compared to others around. Justin and I were happy we managed to pry Kevin loose from the clutches of his south Jersey loving girlfriend, Kat.
When everyone had arrived, we shuttled with as few cars as possible south to Penndel.

Taddei Woods

This was actually right by the Langhorn train station. Dave Goldberg was taking the train in and would meet us there, which worked out pretty well.
Where we’d last left off in the Neshaminy Series, on both previous hikes, we got to the historic little mill town of Hulmeville and head to head west to the Schuykill Mall.
When I tried to figure out how we would handle the start of this one, I knew nothing about on street parking or where we could get away with it. Instead, I looked to near Langhorne Station. We were able to find parking there at a closed old grocery store.

Old farm on the way to Hulmeville

When I looked at the maps, I saw a preserve called Taddei Woods. It was small, but it had some trails in it. I figured I would never incorporate this into anything else ever if I didn’t do it this time, and it was pretty much on the way between where we parked and Hulmeville.
We headed to the south a bit, crossed Durham Road and followed Monroe Ave to the southwest. We turned from here to the right on Woodland Ave to the corner of Washington Ave where we met up with Dave, near a church.

A little park overlook nearing Hulmeville

Once we were all together, we headed down Washington toward the dead end at the end of it. I wasn’t sure that this would give us the access to Taddei Woods, but as it turned out it did.
I’m not sure where the woods takes it’s name, but probably from a land benefactor. The entrance was at the right side, before the end of the road, with an entrance way made of woods. We entered and continued around the last house on the road, then into the woods.
It was incredibly wet out there; standing water was everywhere, and hard to get around.

Old Neshaminy mill race in Hulmeville

We walked to where we were surrounded by woods, and trails split to both the left and right (more straight). I wanted to milk whatever we could out of this park and see everything, so we went to the left at first. This led us to an area inundated with water. No one wanted to walk through a lot of that this soon, so we backtracked and just followed the direct way through, which turned out to be wet enough anyway. My shoes were covered in mud. This trail led us out at the end of Holly Avenue, and we continued southwest.

Old dam on the Neshaminy in Hulmeville

We followed Holly Ave to the end, then turned to the left on Rt 513 briefly. We then cut across a grassy swath to get us out to the much lesser used narrow one way street. Google maps defines it as three different names: Pfc John Debola Ave, Bristol Ave, and Walnut Street. Whatever the real name of it is, we turned left to follow it south. There was a lovely old stone home across, with a well restored barn. Just past it, some of the land to the right of us appeared to be a park, with a nice bench overlooking a bucolic field setting.

Old mill race in Hulmeville

We continued through the neighborhood to the south, and began to enter the village of Hulmeville.
Hulmeville is an historic settlement on the Neshaminy Creek named in honor of leading industrialist John Hulme Jr.
He purchased the town in 1795, and by 1814 established the Farmer’s National Bank, the first bank in Bucks County. We were still in the newer portion of the town until we got to the intersection with Neshaminy Street where we turned to the left.

Neshaminy dam

We soon turned left on Park Drive, which took us down hill toward the Neshaminy Creek. Neshaminy Picnic Park, which ended up being a closed off private park with rentable pavilions, was on the right of us. We couldn’t go in around the chain link fences, but we went straight instead to check out the creek.
A good path led us down, and there was an awesome old dam across at this point. A lot of force was going over it, and there were warning signs everywhere.

Neshaminy dam

Adjacent to the dam, the old mill race to one of the industries was still in place. I walked the path up to have a closer look at it. There was a nice remaining section of masonry in the middle, and the wheel that would have occupied the area of this raceway must have been enormous.
We crossed the mill race area on rocks and continued from the dam site to walk down stream on the Neshaminy. It wasn’t really a trail, but it was clear enough for us to get by on. Japanese Knotweed and what was probably Phragmites were on the shore. I walked onto an island section briefly trying to navigate along.

Neshaminy Dam

My plan was constantly changing regarding what to do with this hike series, including at this point. When I planned the first and second hikes, I figured we could bushwhack behind the apartments across from Hulmeville to remain closer to the creek. On both of those hikes, we ran overtime and ended up not being able to try that. After looking at the aerial images and not being able to see many reasonable pathways, I sort of gave up on the idea of trying to follow it that way. I scaled the route on the north and east side of the creek.

Along the Neshaminy

When we got to this dam, I could see that the other side looked rather steep, but still somewhat navigable. Since there was no snow on the ground to worry about, and it was so far a dry day, I figured we’d try to follow the section on the other side. My original plan was to follow a long section of back streets and such out of Hulmeville.
We followed the creek down stream to where the Trenton Road, Rt 513, crossed over the Neshaminy. On the north side, there was a large pipe under the highway.

Big pipe

It was warm enough to handle it, so I couldn’t resist going through. I climbed down into teh water, and walked through the giant pipe beneath the road. Laura followed me, and went herself because she was wearing rubber boots that were of course totally waterproof.
We came out the other side, climbed to the top, and could see the historic Hulmeville Inn just beyond the intersection. I’m not sure when it was built, but it appears quite historic.
We turned to the west and crossed the bridge over the Neshaminy. On the other side, we climbed down beneath.

Hulmeville Inn

The Neshaminy was running dark and muddy because of all of the excess rain we’d been getting. Still, it was pretty cool looking.
When we got beneath the road bridge, we noticed a lot of graffiti. Nicole was wearing a bright coat with a pattern of paint splatter on it. She said something about it being her camouflage for the hike.
We continued from the bridge up stream a bit from the bridge. The concrete one replaced an earlier metal span froma round 1899. I was very happy immediately to see that there was a kind of path below.

Graffiti camo

From the other side of the creek, it looked as though it would be tricky to walk along the steep slope, but it turned out to be alright right form the start.
We followed the path toward the old dam on the creek.
The first dam and mill erected at Hulmeville was before the town even had that name. It was originally “Milford” or “Milford Mills”. There were both grist and saw mills at the site. When Hulme settled at the site, the name was changed to “Hulmeville Landing” before being abbreviated.

Hulmeville dam

The original mills from the site burned down about 1829. When excavation was done for a new mill years later, the old mill foundation was discovered, as well as the original water wheel.
We descended a bit from the hillside to a great little outlook to the old dam over the creek. This seemed like a good spot to take a break and regroup.
When I originally had planned this hike, I looked at both sides of the creek to try to determine which way would work teh best for us. Initially I chose this side.

Hulmeville bridge

After doing the first two sections and looking more closely, it seemed evident that it might not be good to follow this side on through. We might be better off just following back streets north of Hulmeville, because we’d be somewhat near the creek, and the worst part would be following the section of Lincoln Highway to the north for a bit.
If there was a lot of snow on the ground, it probably would have been the route I’d choose to do for this one, but fortunately the weather was working pretty well in our favor.

Neshaminy Dam

A long stretch on the east (then south) side of the creek appeared to remain in lands associated with home owners’ associations and apartment buildings, while the east and north side was mostly private homes. Still, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought the hike would probably be a mess of bushwhacking and stuff, and we’d eventually give up and walk roads.
Amazingly, such was not the case, and we were able to just keep walking it. We left the dam area and started walking to the north. At times it was a narrow footpath, but it widened.

Neshaminy

Immediately, the path started going up and down a bit. It was slightly muddy because we’d been getting a healthy amount of rain or snow, but it wasn’t too bad.
The trail eased off down to the flood plain, and we continued north with no problems. The main trail sometimes would turn off to the right where there were great little views of the Neshaminy.
The path was quite clear. We could see apartments and buildings at first near the dam, but soon they all kind of obscured atop the slopes, much of the time out of sight.

Neshaminy

The creek was more calm and quiet above the dam, and we moved along at a steady pace.
When I eventually saw a trail to another view spot to the right, I had everyone stop for a little break. It was a great little spot, with a giant old Sycamore overhanging into the Neshaminy, and closer to the main path was a tire swing affixed to a more inland tree. It would be the perfect little spot to stop for a break and a snack. We went over closer to the water, but of course a few had to hold back to play on the tire swing.

The path

I tried to use the thing but I was way too heavy for it. It just dragged on the ground when I even tried.
Kevin and Justin climbed around on a tree closer to the water, and when Martyn was done messing with the tire swing, he busted out some delicious ham of some sort as well as cheese and shared it.
When we were done with our break, we continued along the river up stream a ways more. The paths were rather obviously used by ATVs, although we never passed any ourselves on this stretch.

Tire swing

Eventually, we reached the edge of a private camp area. I didn’t want to chance having a problem, and there was a sanitary sewer line right of way the path continued to follow up hill to the left. This made more sense to follow, so we turned and started walking up that.
The trail was still nice and clear, with an occasional manhole here and there. We followed it up hill, checked out a couch along the way, and soon emerged along Declaration Drive. We turned right to start following that to the west for a bit.

The group along the Neshaminy

We made our way a negligible distance on the road, to the right on Declaration Drive, and then passed a series of more apartment type buildings on the right.

Sewer line or something

Soon, we reached the entrance road to the private camp property that we had tried to avoid, called Cherokee Drive. We walked down this a short distance, then I saw a good spot to bushwhack off of it directly toward the creek. I don’t think the group expected me to do that, but they all followed. It didn’t take me long bullying through undergrowth to get to another cleared trail, which also looked like it was regularly run by ATVs. We turned left to continue following it along the Neshaminy up stream as if we’d never left.

Flood plain section

It was basically jut a regular path heading down stream, accessible via ATV out of some of the nearby apartments and such. It weaved around a bit, and the slope on the near side of the creek got a lot steeper, but with a good path along the way. The other side widened out into a very wide flood plain with some lovely wetland views.
We continued along the slope, which became much more open with less undergrowth to the west. We headed slightly down hill into a very open and flat spot that people had cleared.

Open party spot

This was definitely some kind of party spot. The big trees were all still there, but there were no young ones. There was an impressive giant Beech tree on teh way down.
In the middle of the open area, there was an enormous fire pit area. It was actually a sort of seating area with a spot for fire in the middle.
We took another break in this area and waited for everyone else to catch up. Michelle had these feathery spinny things that people use in colour guard or something, spinning them around. Martyn started using them a little bit, and they let me have a go at them.

Tree fun

I tried swinging them around, but I was treating them as if they were a pair of nunchukus rather than light feathery things. It’s less force and more flip of the wrist stuff, which I would need to get the hang of more. Still relatively interesting though!
We continued from the open party spot further along the river. The next oddity was a partially hollow tree along the river bank. It was narrow and would be tough to get in, but I knew Martyn could fit. We took the picture opportunity of him inside the tree before moving on.
The trail went up and down the hill a bit, but then started becoming a more prominent old roadway closer to the Neshaminy.
The trail took us along the road for a bit, then to a barricade out to North River Drive to end the long off road section. I was elated at how well this section went.
North River Drive was just a dead end road that led us past a few houses. There were a lot of signs to the right saying not to trespass, and “home owners and guests only” type of things. We just walked on through toward the end.

Graffiti tree

We followed the road to the west, with some good views of the Neshaminy, and the bend to the north. We could see the next two bridges up stream, carrying Rt 1 followed by the Old Lincoln Highway. The road weaved to the left a bit, then headed up to intersect with Belmont Ave and Bristol Road. From North River, we could see signs across the creek at an apparent bar and package goods place reading “Bucket Special”. We were saying “If only Mr. Buckett was here for this one!”. We turned right on Bristol Road to cross Rt 1.

Bucket special

Immediately on the other side, there was a path down to lead us to the bar. Captain Soup and I got there first and walked around the perimeter of it. The outside wall had openings in the smooth facing to reveal what might have been some original stone work beneath. The building did look like it could be pretty old.
We walked around the outside, and we couldn’t quite figure out the way we were supposed to go in. When we figured it out and got inside, we were rather shocked to discover it was a strip club, called Scruples!

The Neshaminy

Some of the rest of the group started in behind us, and some of them wanted to stay, while others were pretty much “no way”. I was not going to split the group on this one, and plus we couldn’t sit in a place like that and not tip them the entire time. The place was dead, with one girl tending bar and one girl dancing in some sheer thing. They were trying to get me not to leave, and told me there was a five dollar cheese steak special. While that is a good deal, for all 18 of us that would have taken an eternity for sure. We couldn’t spend that kind of time. There was only one other guy in the place, sitting to the right quietly, and they very much didn’t want us to go. I told them I have to leave, some of the group is still outside. She responded “I’ll go outside just like this and tell them all to come in!”.

Old Lincoln Highway bridge

The group wanted to stop somewhere for food, but I didn’t want to get too far behind. We had a long way to go. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Neshaminy Mall was actually pretty close to where we were. Still, it’s a good thing we continued on, considering how the rest of the day into night went.
We left the place out of the regtular entrance, and then turned to the right on Old Lincoln Highway. We followed across the bridge, and immediately on the other side we descended down to the flood plain along the Neshaminy.

Concrete viaduct for the Reading Railroad

We walked along the shore, which had some weird little pools along the main flow, heading up stream. It got a little rough in this area, but we navigated it alright to the multi-arch concrete viaduct of the former Reading Railroad line, now the SEPTA West Trenton Line.

Reading arch

The line was built in 1876 by the National Railroad, which made a more direct connection to New York City from Philadelphia. It was electrfied in the 1930s, and taken over by Conrail in 1976.
Fortunately, this line survived Conrail, and it was turned over to SEPTA in 1983. It’s still heavily used.
Craig and I got to the viaduct first and took a little break in it’s shade. There was a utility clearing across from us, and we could see the next dam on the creek up stream. Just below us, there is a sewage treatment plant that we never saw anything of at all.

Once everyone was caught up, we passed between the arches of the bridge and continued up steram on the Neshaminy. There was the dam just ahead, but then I noted that there were cameras on it. I didn’t want to have any problem, so I went back, and decided we’d try the upper route.
We climbed up, but the road ahead was fenced off. We’d have to try to continue on the outside of the fence at the top of the slope. I tried to do that, but it was no good. The weeds got so terrible that I just had to continue on down to the creek side.

Found brewski!

Some of the group stayed lower, and some followed me. There was really no good way. Even at the bottom, the further we went, the harder it got to continue.
To make matters worse, the ground was terribly slippery. There was one spot along the creek that had such slippery mud, and a good drop off to the water, that a fall would have been disastrous. Fortunately, everyone made it through that point without too much problem. The little path got even smaller, and we fought through some weeds, but then it opened up.

Watery

Soon, we came to where our side of the creek opened back up into a wider flood plain. After that mess, it was a good spot to take a break and regroup.
In this rather open area that was obviously used by ATVs, there were several beers sat on a tree stump. They were Bud Light, and they were well battered. We concluded that they must have been someone's paddling beverages, but that they must have fallen out of the boat somewhere along the way. They bore the look as though they had been tumbled around a lot.

"Official" trail!

Of course, Justin had to try one. Typically, he'd never take a drink of such a vile beverage, but because of where it was found, trying it was necessary. Uncle Soup felt the same, and so engaged also. They claimed it was surprisingly not "skunked", and finished it. The remainder of them went into my pack for future use (in case some lush who drinks all of our good stuff comes out and never contributes anything, we have something to give them!). We continued from this point along the path along the Neshaminy up stream.

Official trail

The trail was much like what we had been on before, except there was a lot more mud and water. I ended up just walking through a lot of it at this point. It was warm enough out that it didn't bother my feet.
An ATV came up on us from behind, but he was quite courteous because he didn't approach us from behind. We'd surely have gotten splashed pretty badly if he tried to pass.
Soon, we came upon a good surprise: an official trail system. Blue blazes, done correctly with turn blazes and such, led in a route straight ahead along the creek. It had come in from somewhere to the right. The trail led us up hill and away eventually, and had some improvements like little bridges and such.

Neshaminy view from higher up

I recall there were side trails that broke off of this too. This trail system belonged to Neshaminy High School which was just up the hill from us. My plan was to remain as close as was reasonably possible to the creek itself, so we kept to the left at all of the turns.
The trail was obviously used by mountain bikers, because we came to some of their little obstacles, the likes of which we've seen in other places. They had one of those logs cut off flat on the top with a ramp off of the one side as we made our way north of the high school.

Log on the trail

The trail leveled out a bit, and it seemed to start to weave back toward the high school. There was a side trail to the left, which we were able to follow out to Fairhill Avenue. The road continued down hill to the left, but has no outlet. It appeared on my aerial images that thsi was all private homes, so we wouldn't have been able to get through.
It was decided that we'd regroup here, and Captain Soup and I would go and scout ahead for potential routes.
Across and to the left from where we hit the road, another trail went into a swath of trees to the north. This came out at the end of Turtle Lane. I was hoping to find some connection to Playwicki Street to the north, but we didn't see anything. We backtracked and met back with the group at Fairhill, and then started following that to the south.

Neshaminy view

We came to the corner of Granite Avenue, and then I went over the aerials again on my phone for our best route options. Natalia was close by and ready to meet up with us, so I had her head to the Orchard Square Apartments to the south to park. We turned to the east on Granite, and then cut through a small swath of woods that took us out to a field across from the apartments. We could then get into the parking lot and onto sidewalks around the buildings heading to the east. We made our way out to Orchard Avenue, and Natalia met us there where she had an easy place to park.

WEEE TRAIL!

We turned left from this point on Old Lincoln Highway again. Certainly, we were not following a very direct route, but when I think about it, it does seem more disconnected. It didn't feel like the same highway or that we were missing an easier way.
We continued until we got to Arbutus Ave, and turned left there. We followed that to a right turn on Clearview Ave which took us north to Brownsville Road. We followed that on to the intersection with Periwinkle Ave. There was an abandoned foundation of a former house on the corner, and we walked down across the property to cut a corner. There were stand pipes from the former building's plumbing in this area as well.

House ruin site

Natalia and Martyn were speaking Russian, which was really cool to hear. For whatever reason, I never knew that Martyn could speak Russian, but it was really interesting. We had a discussion about the culture in Pennsylvania Russian culture, and how the Russian Orthodox ended up in the coal country areas like Scranton and Wilkes Barre, and Russian Jews were more around the Philadelphia area. The different cultures, and how they ended up where, and why, amazes me.
We cut a corner from Periwinkle Drive to Bridle Drive, which went much closer to the Neshaminy Creek. The homes on this stretch of road were build up much higher, with the stronger framework lower levels, and the living space high above. The lower levels are typically emptier and don't serve as much purpose.

Wandering...

We followed the entire length of this road to where it started to turn ninety degrees back toward Periwinkle Drive.
Rather than continue on the road, there was a reasonable path off into the woods straight ahead. We started to follow it, and it led us back down closer to the Neshaminy. There were a lof of Phragmites or something growing there, and it got quite muddy, but we got on through it. We soon came out to the Maple Avenue bridge over the creek. This rather new looking arch structure had a path underneath it, from which we could view the amazing masonry viaduct of the former Pennsyvania Railroad ahead. This is now SEPTA run, but was the Trenton Cutoff of Pennsylvania Railroad. It’s a handsome, tall stone viaduct.

Neshaminy Viaduct

The Trenton Cutoff was a 48 mile line constructed by the Pennsylvania Railroad and opened in 1892. It’s purpose was to get riders to New York City and bypass Philadelphia, instead keeping to the suburbs. There are actually two viaducts; the Upper Neshaminy Viaduct is just up stream, and at a slightly lower elevation.

Group shot from Natalia's phone

We made our way from the path, which seemed to peter out pretty quickly, to the right, to the access road to Playwicki Park. This took us beneath the handsome stone bridge and to the north. The second viaduct soon came into view beyond there.

Neshaminy Viaduct

This bridge area has baffled me for a pretty long time, and I can't find any absolute answers for it.
I have always wondered which of the two viaducts is the older one. The taller, more southern one is all masonry, while the upper structure has brick included in it. Justin and I were talking about it and speculating on which one could possibly be the older one.
From what I've read, the earlier one is the lower structure with the brick, from the 1890s. The taller structure came in probably about 1904 and had a better grade for faster service. Apparently freight could use one and go slower while the speedy passenger trains could avoid any sluggish trains on the lower one.
Between the two bridges, on the right, there was some kind of masonry ruins as well. I'm not sure what that was for.
We passed beneath the Upper Neshaminy Viaduct and entered Playwicki Park. We headed over the left, where there was a lovely sideways growing Sycamore tree I've always loved, and took some more photos of the viaduct. We then turned to the right and headed over to the restrooms for another break. They were closed, but a porta john was there. At this point, Dave was planning to cut out with an Uber, and Paras opted to go along with him. The weather forecast was starting to look bad.

Neshaminy Viaduct

Justin and Kevin decided to take the break time and explore the top of the Upper Neshaminy Viaduct. They went up on top and took some photos.
The rest of us started to continue on from here, and followed the trail along the Neshaminy through Playwicki Park heading up stream. It's a really good trail for a while. I think only the first part is actually official, but the rest is pretty clear too.
When the "official" part came to the close of it's loop, I held back to make sure that no one missed the turn they needed to make. We then continued further up stream.

Upper Neshaminy Viaduct

There were beautiful root systems, little streams that flowed in from beneath the parallel former Pennsyvlania Railroad, and little camp sites along the way. We passed a lady while we walked that warned us ahead there was a guy who fires a gun when people go toward his property. We definitely wanted to avoid that.

Neshaminy at Playwicki

I had followed this section twice before. The first time was on a night hike in September of 2009, and the second time was a couple of years later in a loop out of Newtown. That was all part of my connective series that was supposed to continue on, but I never got around to it. I had done my first hike into Playwicki Park in October of 2007.
I'm not sure the history of the park or the name itself. I assume Playwicki must be a Native American name, but I can't find anything else on it. Even the park maps and such don't want to load up correctly.

Playwicki trail

We continued following the trail either way, up and down along the shore of the Neshaminy in what was really a lovely walk. It'd have been quicker to stay on the railroad bed, but I'd save that for a future one.
When the private land came in, we headed up to the former Pennsylvania Railroad bed, from the lower of the two grades, and followed the right of way to the east for a bit. It was a clear and pleasant walk for a while. We followed the railroad bed as far as Route 413, Pine Street. From there, we had to head down.

Playwicki Trail

We took a path after crossing over the road. There were two handsome stone arch bridges together, one for the active line and one for the abandoned line. Once at the bottom, we turned to the north and walked through the narrow older culvert. We then continued on Pine Street a little ways to the north.
This was one of the worst parts of the hike because it was so narrow. We soon came to the Bridgetown Mill House, which is now a restuarant. On the same property stands the stone shell of the Bridgetown Grist Mill built in 1704. The mill house is probably around the same vintage, but I'm not totally sure.

Pennsylvania Railroad bed

We regrouped again in this area. The Neshaminy was just behind the mill, where there is a new bridge built parallel with the old pony truss bridge. It was here that we would leave the Neshaminy for this hike.
Any major tributary is more than just it's main course. In this case, the Core Creek breaks off, and heads into Core Creek Park, which has Lake Luxembourg as it's main attraction. There are tons of trails through there, and this is the perfect opportunity to showcase more of them. I'd only done a few of them in the past, so that would be the next leg of the hike.

Moist tapes?

We hung out at the corner for a bit, across from the mill house where there was another lovely old stone house, probably of similar vintage. It seemed to have one addition to it, but it probably dates back to colonial days at least in the one part.
We also passed a weird sign that someone had posted "moist" and some cassette tape image.
Once everyone was together, we turned to the right briefly along Bridgetown Pike. I could see a mowed path in behind the trees to the right of us, but I was looking for a trail to the left. When it came into sight, I cut through a little bit of weeds and got onto it.

Bridgetown Grist Mill ruins

This section of the trail followed the Bridgetown Head Race to the mill for a good while. I'd discovered this trail, which is not on the Core Creek Park maps, by accident when exploring with Rich Pace, Ron Phelps, and Rob Creamer a few years back.
We got on the trail and started following it along the raceway to the east. It eventually turned off of it and onto some of the higher land to the right. For the most part, it continued to rather closely parallel to Bridgetown Pike.
The trail crossed an access road to Park Road, which goes off to Lake Luxembourg. More trails did turn off and go different ways, but we continued on the one closest to Bridgetown Pike heading to the east.

Mill race trail in Core Creek park

After crossing a couple of other trails and access points, the trail made it's way into more sparse vegetation. It went up and down some knolls, and then turned back into the direction we had come from. This was a loop being used by mountain bikers, and so it was quite circuitous. We couldn't continue following this, it would take forever. Instead, I cut through an opening and crossed over Park Road to the north. We then headed down hill and directly across a very large farm field, all part of Core Creek park. When we got to the north side, we turned right to follow the edge east.

Core Creek Park

There was a house out across the field that appeared to be lived in, and I worried slightly about a caretaker coming and yelling at us. I didn't know if the edge of the field was an official trail or not.
Soon, we came to an opening, and I knew we were okay. We headed into the woods to the south, closely parallel with another field at first, and then into deeper woods. We continued to descend until we were on the shore of Lake Luxembourg. There were many other trails back there I'm just going to have to incorporate into one of the future hikes, probably the next Neshaminy series hike.

Field crossing

We turned to the right to follow the shore of the lake. There were people out fishing along a peninsula section directly across from where we reached the shore.

Lake Luxembourg

The trail headed inland a bit, along a cove section, then turned left to cross a section of puncheons and a bridge. We then went up hill to reach a parking lot at ball fields and such.
My plan for the remainder of the hike changed quite a bit from this point. It had already been a kind of weird mish mash of stuff, and a surprising amount of off road foot paths, but the rest was suburban and all kind of planned out with careful analysis of aerial images. It’d be pretty direct, but with less road walking than one might think.

Core Creek Park puncheon

We turned to the right along the access road, but were able to walk through the grass parallel with it. It wasn't a main road, so it didn't feel like a road walk anyway. I walked atop the railing beside the road for a while, until we got to where we could see well out across and toward the Maple Point Middle School. Here, rather than just follow the road weaving back and forth, I set my sights on things in the distance that were most direct to where I wanted to go, and walked straight toward it. That put me in grass, through parking lot, and out to the road again without following the turns.

Ragged tree

At the crossing of the road, we passed tennis courts or something, and then crossed another wide field with an interestingly growing somewhat hollow old tree. It looked like something out of a horror film.
Next, I set my sights toward the Maple Point Middle School, directly across from the Core Creek Park area, and across a long field. I told everyone to aim for just to the right of the main building, off in the distance. We simply crossed over busy Woodbourne Road, and followed the grassy field up to the corner of the building. We didn't have to walk on the parking lot for long, and a paved trail went of to the right to continue across the field to the east.

Paved trail

The trail took us out to a tree line where it went to the left, presumably to the near cul de sac, and to the right to Langhorne Yardley Road. The trail never came totolly out to the road, but rather stayed a bit in and parallel with it, which made it much more pleasant to walk than just along side the road the entire time.
It wasn't all that long before we reached Middletown Community Park. Here, the trail turned inland a bit more and passed through more of the developed park. It went over a littel foot bridge, and weaved around with side paths leading to dugouts and shelters and such for the sports fields.

Middletown Community Park

We followed the paved pathways along the south side of the park right up to the end. When teh paved path kept going around to the left, we headed back out to Langhorne Yardley Road and started heading northeast.
The road was kind of nice at times; at one point there was an historic farm house still rather intact along the way, but a lot of it was sort of McMansions.
We didn't have to be on the road for too long, and we turned off to the right to follow the berm of a retention pond out to the intersection with Township Line Road.

Retention pond

On the other side of Township Line Road, there was a paved "trail" following along Langhorne Yardley Road. It had started to rain a bit earlier, and at this point it was starting to get heavier. We got really lucky with the weather thus far, so we really couldn't complain. If it were nicer though, I'd have tried to walk the paved pathways within the development to the right.
We continud out to Interstate 95, where the pathway took us beneath, but at a higher elevation than the road. Once we went this way, we wouldn't be able to get back ot the roadway, which I wondered about. I didn't want to get into a situation with further walking.

Middletown Community Park

We took a break under the bridge, and realized at that point that a lot of the group wasn't going to catch up with us too soon. It was pretty straightforward that this was the road we needed to take back to the end.
We waited just a little bit for some of the group to catch up, and then opted to just keep moving. We walked beneath the bridges, and the paved path cut to the right, and into an apartment complex. It touched the end of Woodford Lane, but we could continue on the sidewalk extension of it to the left.

Home stretch

It was pretty dark at this point, and the rain had switched over to snow. We just kept following the sidewalks that kept to the left, and the last one took us on a corridor behind the apartment buildings. It was really kind of a nice greenway. There was an historic home of some sort to the left, but I couldn't tell what the signs on it said. It looks as though the path we were following may have at one time been the main road. It might have been shifted for the 95 underpass at some point.
We followed the path out to Stony Hill Road at Woodside, which was many years before known as Edgewood. We crossed, and entered the parking lot for the grocery store, and passed the bank that occupies an historic house.

Washington: My walk home

Most of the group wasn't too far behind, but I couldn't leave anyone either. Much of the group wanted to go out for dinner, but the snow was beginning to accumulate already. Martyn was really talking up this place that has "cheese boats". Being a lover of cheese, I of course was interested, but I didn't want to be driving home in horrible weather either.

Ham

I called Dan and John, and they were both alright. We waited a bit longer, and Rob and Cory showed up as well.
Despite them trying to get me to stay, I figured Justin and I had better get a move on. It was a good thing we did; by the time we got driving just a short distance, the roads were terrible.
It took what seemed like an eternity to take 95 to 31 north, and we pit stopped at Taco Bell on the way back up. By the time we got to Justin's car at he old A&P in Washington, it was pretty well snowed in. We were worried he wouldn't even be able to pull out of the lot.
Fortunately, we got out and were on our way. Still, when I got into Washington I has to park in the middle of town, in the town lot, and walk back to my house. The snow was still coming down pretty heavy on my walk home.
It had been a really great day. This hike far exceeded my expectations; I was expecting much more interspersed development walking, and instead we got really what could be a fantastic long distance trail, if someone would spearhead it. We had a hike experience that cerrtainly no one else has ever had, and I know that the next section in this series is going to be at least as good.