Hike #883; Great Bay and Tuckerton

Hike #883; Great Bay and Tuckerton

9/27/15 Great Bay Blvd and Tuckerton area with Michael Helbing Serious Sean Dougherty, Jack Lowry, Jennifer Berndt, James Quinn, Stephen Argentina, Steven Smith, Ron Lozowski, Susan L Duncan, Gregg Hudis, Lyz Hagenbuch, and Ric Giantisco..... and FlipFlop Duncan

Great Bay Blvd group shot

Our next hike would be the next in the Jersey Perimeter series, getting even closer to that final one.
This would be another little “fill in the blanks” section of stuff that I’d wanted to do but didn’t get around to. Just to tie up some loose ends. One of the largest loose ends was that of Great Bay Blvd out of Tuckerton, a very long road that juts way out onto the bay. Although walking it would just be an out and back, not really like walking around the perimeter, I didn’t feel that it would be right to leave out this significant long and scenic road.

Perimeter completed so far

These loose ends really don’t look like they’d be much on the larger map of how much I’ve accomplished, but I don’t want to cheat and say that I did something when I know in my own mind there is something more I can do. Even after I complete this perimeter series, I know for certain that if some new park opens up, if there is a new estuary enhancement program or some other whatever happens along the shore, I am going to want to go back and walk further out along the edge.
This time, the plan was to hike from the end of Great Bay Boulevard out into Tuckerton, explore some other stuff while there, and then continue out Green Street from Tuckerton to the end near Gaunt Point. Then, both little tails of road out to the bay near Tuckerton would be complete. Rather than confuse people with meeting points way out on these peninsulas, I tried to keep it simple by making the meeting point right in Tuckerton, at the Wawa store.

Unfortunately, this messed up for me because it turns out that there are two Wawas on the same road several miles apart. Some of the group ended up at the one right off the Garden State Parkway while others ended up at the one I intended in town. Fortunately, it worked out alright. Gregg and I hung out and he shuttled Ron to the start point with his dogs so we could simplify the car shuttle when we were ready.

We shuttled some cars out to Tuckerton Beach near Gaunt Point, then headed back and around out Great Bay. Once we were there, we started out with a lovely, relaxing walk out a foot path to the beach at the very end where we had a really good view of Atlantic City to the southeast, as well as the rest of the barrier islands directly across from us. I reminisced with Jack about the great time we had on the Brigantine Hike, which was basically right across from where we were, but slightly south (there is another inaccessible barrier island in between).

End of Great Bay Blvd

The views were really great. We could see quite a ways, and it wasn’t too hot or overcast, and there weren’t a lot of strawberry flies or greenheads. I didn’t expect the hike to be anything all too special...but like so many other ones where we go in with little expectation, we come out having one of the most fun and silly days of the year.

After checking out the bay views, we headed back out to the road to begin our way back to Tuckerton. The end of Great Bay Blvd was just a gravel road, but most of it was paved. Also near the end was this neat boardwalk to a private pier area to the left. We stepped onto it to take in some of the views. I could see the “fish factory”, an inaccessible abandoned building out on the bay, to the south of us.

We crossed the first bridge over one of the estuary crossings heading north. There was a traffic light for this one way wooden bridge so that cars didn’t crash into each other. Fishermen use the bridge heavily, and so there is never a time when two cars could pass. It’s hard enough to pass the fishermen with one car going across the structure.

One of Ron’s dogs ran off to the south at some point, so Lyz and Ric helped them get her, and they soon caught up with us.
The road walk section was also where we started finding strange things. I got an umbrella that still worked sitting along the edge, and James found a pair of sneakers that actually seemed to fit him more comfortably than the ones he wore to the hike. He took the other sneakers off, put them in his pack, and wore the new sneakers he found!
Serious Sean had run behind and met up with us somewhere in this area, and parked at one of the access points.

View on the first bridge.

The views of the bay, near Whirlpool Point from these bridges were outstanding. It was a really scenic and relaxing walk passing through. We crossed a second similar bridge pretty soon, with more nice views as we had a pleasant walk to the north. Another bridge took us up and over Little Thorofare, this one beefier than the little wooden deals we had passed over earlier. While we walked, we sang along, this time both Jack and Serious Sean had brought their guitars, and so we had a pretty interesting sound with the two of them playing different parts.

Harmony!

I recall singing along with lots of songs but in particular Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”.
Stephen and Steven seemed to be getting alone really well, and there was lots of silliness to laugh at there too. I just can’t remember what it all was!
We crossed over Big Thorofare, but first walked a nice section of board walks along the bay a bit, and then went underneath the bridge to the other side for some views. There was a guy surf gliding with a large parachute we stopped to watch for a bit. The guy looked like he was going to crash pretty bad, but had it well under control.

Silliness

We continued north as the road entered the more developed area. Ron had to cut out here, having parked his truck there. He had previous engagements, but wanted to come because he had a personal connection to the area. I was glad he could make it out, and hope he can come out again soon.
The rest of us continued until we reached Baltic Avenue to the right. Here, we cut into the development and turned right on Santa Cruz Road. We took it to the cul de sac where we found all sorts of stuff put out for the trash. There was a chair that I really liked in the mess of stuff, and James actually went back and got it for me later! We goofed off and jumped around on mattresses before moving on.

I think Jen got some stuff with James too when they came back for it, but I really can’t remember what it was!

Scenic retention pond trail

From the end, we turned right around a fenced retention pond, with a mowed path around the outside. We walked this, then came to a fenced tennis court or something, and continued to walk around that. This was the perimeter of NJ of course, I could not leave it out! At the other side, the development’s Nature Trail went into the woods, so we took that out to an area where one can view the bay. The trail just goes out and ends, but also connects with another access to the trail off of the intersection with Baltic.

Looks trailular.

We turned right again on Santa Cruz Road, having exited the trail section, and then made another right on part of a loop that road makes. This took us out to Bartlett Avenue. We couldn’t really walk to the right and go into the private marina, so we went straight across into the woods to bushwhack to a trail I had done a few months back.
The woods weren’t too terrible to walk through. There were a few of the annoying green thorny vines going up into the Atlantic White Cedars, but other than that we could pretty easily navigate around them.
Soon, I could see the trail, which was pretty wide, straight ahead through the woods. I made my way for it, and nearly fell out of the thick brush onto the path. Four people were walking toward me from the right, probably thinking I was some sort of insane person bumbling out of the woods.
To my great surprise, one of the four was none other than my good old buddy Chris Jones!

OMG It's Chris Jones!!!

“OH MY GOD, CHRIS??” I bellowed out in total shock. The chance of two guys from the same town who went to school and worked together ending up on this pretty much unknown and lightly used trail out of Tuckerton NJ is pretty unlikely.
I proceeded to bust on Chris for being out hiking with someone when I invite him all the time and he never comes. I gave him a beer and we BS’d for a bit. A lot of people in the group had already heard a lot of the stores about Chris, so it’s cool that they got to see him there, though it’d be cool if they could actually experience the level of lunacy we’ve gotten to.

Boardwalk in Tuckerton

Chris told us that he was there because his friends from around there had invited him to a Duck Decoy festival. I never knew that was even a thing. A festival for those who created duck decoys? And why would Chris want to go to something like that?
No matter, it was cool seeing him, and we moved on along the trail to the north, keeping near the bay. When we passed the Nature Trail sign, we continued to displays of things like little military boats. We crossed a boardwalk bridge to the right, which actually took us through to the creek where all the boats were parked.

Tuckerton light house

There were lots of interesting little things on display, including a tiller from the “Lucy Evelyn”, which was denoted as the last three masted sailing ship under the US flag. The ship had burned leaving only that piece which is kept on display in Tuckerton now.
We continued along the walkway and came to view the Tuckerton Light House. We had gone in this before, but the top of it wasn’t open at the time. The light house was made as a sort of replica (only wider) of the Tucker’s Island Lighthouse, which was on a barrier island originally attached to Long Beach Island, but then broke free for a century, disappeared, and is now back again. The light house had toppled into the ocean after a bad storm and heavy erosion.

Tuckerton Railroad display

We walked on over and went inside the light house and checked out all of the displays. This was great for the hike, having all of this stuff opened as we went by. It definitely added to the fun of it all.
I was surpised to see that the light house museum had such a big display on the Tuckerton Railroad, which we’d hike a little piece of later. There was more than one full corner devoted to this much forgotten little railroad.

Stephen!

After looking through the displays, Stephen and I made our way up the winding stairway to the top of the light house first. I’d wanted to see the top of this for some time, and it was great that it was opened when we went by. One of the next series’ I had wanted to do was all of the light houses in NJ. This was one of them we’d still need to go up in order to do them all, so we can scratch this one off of the list now as well!

View from the top of Tuckerton Light House Museum

It was a really nice view from the top of the Tuckerton creek especially, with all of the board walks and buildings we had just walked by. We could also see well up and down Route 9 in front of the building, and across Pohatcong Lake across the highway. I wondered how the lake had gotten that name, because it’s a name very common up where I live in Warren County. We have Pohatcong Creek, Pohatcong Township, but several other “ong” indian name variations such as Lopatcong, Netcong, Hopatcong, Netcong, Musconetcong, Shabbecong, Lockatong, and more.

Tuckerton Light House Museum

Across the Pohatcong Lake, I could also see several tents had been erected in Stanley H. “Tip” Seaman County Park. This was the main area for the duck decoy festival we were told by the ladies working at the light house museum.
We walked from the light house onto Rt 9 for some non-perimeter walking, out to the county park where all of the tents were.
Sure enough, it was indeed a duck decoy festival. James had already found a rubber or plastic duck sitting over by the port which he stuck on his bag. James is always making his “James Quack” sound while we’re walking along, so this was particularly funny. They even had these duck calls for sale that sounded just like the noise James makes on his own. I started called them “James calls”.
Sean joined James in making lots of duck sounds for the remainder of the hike. I was looking around for the mayor of Port Republic, who we’d met on a previous perimeter hike, because he was a famous duck decoy maker, but I didn’t see him around.

James finds his kin

We wandered through the tents, and I spent some time talking to the parks people from Ocean County, who gave me lots of good maps that I hadn’t had before. I chatted with the different folks in the preservation world before moving on.
Someone flagged me down from the group and then told me about some sort of great food that was on sale for cheap.
It turned out they were getting ready to close up for the day and all of the food they were selling was dirt cheap! Hot dogs and all sorts of stuff! I don’t recall what all I had, but I had a lot. I do recall having one of the most delicious fish sandwiches I’ve ever had, which was the last thing I had. I think I must have also had a couple of hot dogs or something. James also gave me some sort of powdered sugar pastry things.
While we were pigging out, we hung out near the food stand. They kept selling out of one item and then called out trying to sell the next thing out quickly. I’d had more than enough by the end, but they still had scallops for sale. Jack, Susie, and Serious Sean started calling out “SCALLOPS GET YOUR SCALLOPS”. We must have looked like a bunch of nuts, but I think the vendors got a kick out of us being there. Then, they started singing. Jack played some chords, and Susie was singing “Scallops”. Within a few minutes they had a rather complete homage to Scallops song that was just ridiculously funny.
While walking through the park past this point, Jen found a twenty dollar bill! Yet another score!
When we’d had enough craziness, we headed out the west side of the park to Division Street. We continued on past a supermarket and then to a thrift store where we hoped to be able to buy more junk. Unfortunately, it was closed at this time.

Ridiculous race

Someone had left all sorts of junk out in front of the donation center, and so Lyz and Sean had a ridiculous race with a walker and a miniature shopping cart. This whole trip just kept feeling stranger all the time. We made our way from here to Route 9 again and stopped by Louna Liquors. I’d already had enough to drink from Gregg, and Susie gave me a couple of drinks too, so I didn’t think I needed anything. Everyone else got some stuff, and I went over to the Circle K next door for an Arizona drink for later.
When everyone was ready, my plan was to cross Rt 9 on an ATV path and cut through an open field area to another park. I had a sort of route planned, but when we went in on the ATV path, there was new construction going on and chain link fences we couldn’t easily climb. We wandered through a bit, but then opted to come back out.
We headed up Giffordtown Lane instead heading north, and Serious Sean gave me a Four Loco so I had more anyway. We walked the road up past a lovely pond, then turned right on Nugentown Road which became Fourth Avenue. It crossed over the scenic Mill Branch of the Tuckerton creek, then intersected with Green Street across from Greenwood Cemetery.

Kosher metal?

We walked directly into the cemetery and wandered along the edge. Behind the fence at the far side was the former Tuckerton Railroad. I had hiked this section before, and I remember coming over the fence at some point. This time we had to get back over to walk it some more. We walked it all the way to the end, then headed north along the fence to the north side. There really wasn’t a good way over the fence, so we opted to just go over it where it was lower.

Old Tuckerton Railroad bed

Once we all got over the fence, there was an area that was probably several tracks wide on the railroad. There were concrete bases for what might have been a coal trestle or something. There were obvious grades above regular ground level where tracks would have sat.

Along old Tuckerton Railroad

We turned right to follow the right of way to the south. I had taken this section before, and after walking it for a while I realized that this was the section that ahead we had to bushwhack through a rough spot, then came out behind a nearby lumber company. On that trip, we talked to a guy working there who was cool with us walking through, but I didn’t want to fight through that mess again if we didn’t need to. We cut through the woods to the right when we got to the end of the cemetery, and made our way out to North Green Street through woods. We then walked down the road a short bit to the Depot garden center where we’d seen the lumber before. We turned left here on Railroad Avenue.

Old Tuckerton Railroad

From this road, the last time I went through we didn’t try to follow the railroad any further south. This time, I decided to be brave and actually see if we could walk the right of way any further.
It actually worked out, and we picked up a bit more of the old grade until it came to development, then we turned right past some old foundations which took us back out to North Green Street yet again. We turned right and continued to follow the road to the south for a bit more. Green Street south was the home stretch for this hike. We continued on and passed the much older Tuckerton Cemetery that must have predated the one we walked through before.

Old Tuckerton cemetery

We headed south across Rt 9 and passed the Wawa where we met, or intended to meet in the morning.
Since some left their cars at the lot across from Wawa, they took the opportunity to leave some of their stuff behind. I was surprised that no one called it quits at this point, knowing we were right by the cars. I suppose the day really was just so weird and fun that no one was really ready for it to be over. We headed down the road, and past the last couple of regular homes to the marinas and port sites with the open estuary views.

Bay view

We walked along little sections of bay side beaches, and back onto the road again. We reached the very end near Gaunt Point before the sun began to set. It cast a light on the water and the barrier islands that was quite lovely.

At the end...

We just sort of sat around and enjoyed the end of the day for a bit, on the dock while Sean strummed pleasant melodies on his guitar. As the sun got closer to the horizon, James took some of the drivers back to their cars that were close by, and we all decided to head back to Great Bay Blvd at the end to watch the sun finally set from there.

By the time we got there, clouds had overcast the sunset entirely, but we still want out and wandered onto the beach to have another view of Atlantic City. It was such a high spirited, silly day. Serious Sean said that the whole day was like some acid trip, but no one was doing any acid. It really was just one of those really strange feeling days, like an anomaly in life. It fit in with everything we’d been doing, but somehow didn’t seem to fit in anywhere either. It just seemed like a string of unrelated events thrown haphazardly together, but was actually a planned route.
I suppose that’s what makes a day like this so special. A hike can really take on a life of it’s own with the right characters and the right chain of events.

Ham

This was definitely one of those days to remember, if only we can articulate exactly what happened!