Hike #668; Manahawkin to New Gretna

 Hike #668; Manahawkin to New Gretna

12/1/12 Manahawkin to New Gretna with Jason Kumpas, Amanda Murphy, Brandon Jermyn, Diane ?, Maria ?, ?, Chris "Cupcake" Kroschinski, Darlene Perez, and Ariel.

Group shot on Old New York Road near Bass River

This next hike would be another in the series to hike the perimeter of NJ. We met at a little breakfast and lunch place in New Gretna called "munchies", then shuttled with two cars to the north, to Manahawkin where we'd last left off with the Jersey perimeter hikes.

I had thought the hike would be rather boring, but it was better than I'd anticipated it would be. I've been going mad over completing my "perimeter of NJ" series, and I knew it would become difficult when I got beyond Long Beach Island. Of course I can walk the barrier islands, and the old rail beds just inland from them when that's not possible, but from Manahawkin we only had the former Tuckerton Railraod to Tuckerton itself, then it's a lot of roads. I figured it would be a terrible time of long road only hiking to get through. I'm now finding that it's a little better than that, and we can really make the best of these routes.

We started walking from a small strip mall in the town of Manahawkin, with it's many historic markers all over the place. I was happy to have four newcomers out for this one, three of which came through the NJ/PA/NY hiking group on Meetup.com, and one more, Brandan Jermyn, brother of my good old friend Skyler who had left us to live the fast food life of the Texas flats.

There were a young couple, Maria and ?, both very optimistic and nice people, and Diane who worked for The Nature Conservancy. As it turned out, she shared an office with Allen Barlow, Land Steward at White Lake where I used to live. That of course made for some interesting discussion!Union Street eventually took us on out to Rt 72. The traffic was really heavy, but we managed to cross okay. On the other side, the site of the former junction with the right of way that led to LBI was visible. We'd walked that the previous time. This time, we went straight on the former Tuckerton Railroad.

We headed along the right of way a short distance and then came to a creek crossing. This was a substantial one, and where the rail line would have crossed no longer had a beam bridge or anything in place. There was a beaver dam impounding the water behind the low fill. Fortunately, down stream from the rail bed was a nice foot bridge, which nearly washed out but not quite, spanning the creek. We easily crossed on it and continued.The right of way soon came to a road,  partially built on it, followed it a short distance, then it turned away again and the rail bed resumed as a sand road. We continued on it over the dead end of one road, then across Cedar Run Dock Road.After a section of woods we came to yet another creek, this one not bridged. It was fortunately very warm out this day, so I just walked across, but not everyone was up for that sort of craziness. They all started bushwhacking down stream, and Jason started taking scrap wood, possibly from an old bridge, and putting it over a narrow spot as a makeshift bridge. I waded on over and stepped out (feet were getting real cold anyway) and helped him stabilize what he'd built further. It turned out to be quite a nice little bridge! We crossed and continued on the sandy rail bed.We crossed Mayetta Landing Road and continued. When we reached Dinner Point Ave, the rail bed became less trail like, and there was a pile of debris blocking the way ahead. We bushwhacked into the woods to the left, but came out too early anyway. We made our way across to a short cul de sac near the Eagleswood Amusement Park. Ahead, the right of way was clear into the woods, but marked with no trespassing signs. I opted to have us go out to the road and turn left (Rt 9), then left again past a home that was there to resume on the rail bed. As it turned out, I checked later and the piece where we re-entered the woods to the rail bed was indeed public land. I think part of Edwin Forsyth National Wildlife Refuge.The right of way left the public land but remained clear, and then ended abruptly at the corner of Eagle Ridge Lane. New homes line the edge of this road, and the rail bed was blocked off with a chain link fence. We cut through and followed the street. We could see where it cut away, at someone's yard, but we went out to Rt 9, and just ahead, the right of way came back out to the road.

It crossed over Rt 9 at an angle; coming out of a wide, gated path in the woodlands. Across, there was no way of following it yet, as it was covered over by businesses, so we had to walk Rt 9 south for a little bit. When we got to Cox's avenue, we turned right. This led to a left on Railroad Ave, which was built on or near the right of way. It was a long and straight road, kind of boring, but conversation kept it going.We crossed over West Creek on a nice bridge along the road, entering the settlement of the same name. We then took a lunch break on the left, in the Eagleswood Municipal park. Maria and her boyfriend decided to cut out after eating, while the rest of us continued on. When we neared Sea Oaks Golf Club property, with their golf cart trails crossing the road, there was a sandy road that went above the road and rail bed to the right for a bit, which was a nice break from the road to walk. The railroad must have been along the road because we could see some cinder dirt along it from time to time.When we got to a point where Railroad Ave turned slightly left, the rail bed continued ahead as a dirt lane. We followed it into a nice wooded setting for a bit. It appeared still to be a public road, as it went through. The road came to Hickory Lane, and the right of way was clear save for some big blow downs ahead. We opted to turn right on Hickory Lane because there were people watching us out in the yard of the house to the right. We continued to Green Street, turned left, and then turned left again to enter a cemetery. This large cemetery didn't have many old stones, but they're always nice to walk through.We headed to the back of the cemetery and skirted the chain link fence along the border, and when we found a broke spot we climbed over. There was a cleared path on the other side that was either the rail bed or closely parallel to it. We followed it to the south, and found a wooden platform that seemed reminiscent of rail construction. We were soon on the certain railroad right of way, and we came to a spot where the weeds were coming in strong. We were also close to some sort of business, and we could hear people talking. After looking for a way around and finding wetlands, I figured I'd better go talk to the guys who's voices we heard. They must have heard us already, and were wondering what we were doing. The guy who owned the place was very nice, and he gave us permission to walk through. He also told us that his place was the former site of the Tuckerton Rail Depot, and he named his concrete business for it. He seemed impressed that we'd followed the whole line at this point.We continued on, and tried to follow the line further south, but it was overgrown and getting swampy. We opted to turn right on to Green Street and head south parallel with the route. I'm not sure if it crossed the road or what, or where it went. I know there was some sort of connection to exchange freight between ships and railroad, but I don't know where.We passed a nice old revolutionary war cemetery, and soon reached Tuckerton's Main Street. There was a Dunkin Donuts and a Wawa there, so we stopped for food. I had some mozzarella sticks, and I think a big cookie or something. I forget. We headed through town, and I recall stopping somewhere else, but I forget where.Once we crossed over the Tuckerton Creek, over the outlet of Pohatcong Lake (which bears the same name as the Pohatcong near my home), we continued on Rt 9, but had to stop once more to check out a thrift store. There was a piano right inside the door, so I started playing the Diana Ross song "Theme From Mahogany", which I've alwasy loved, and some proprietor of the place had fallen asleep, so he had to come and see what was going on. Amusing.We wandered through and checked out all the junk, but I didn't buy anything this time.Cupcake, Darlene, and Ariel met up with us at this point and checked stuff out as well before moving on. We then followed Rt 9 southwest out of town.9 was in the woods for a lot of the time, with a wide enough shoulder for walking. For a larger road, it wasn't so terrible. There were ponds with nice scenery and such. I'd seen an abandoned house on Google Earth, and kept checking for it, but didn't find it. We turned left from 9 onto Old New York Road, a dirt road that parallels 9, and is probably the predecessor to the same road.

We followed this nice back road on through, and back to Rt 9, then continued west. As we followed 9 toward Bass River, (with sections of Bass River State Forest parallel with us), we passed a crazy looking house. The place had all sorts of random items and sayings on it that didn't fit together; there was the statue of liberty, a giant Transformer type thing (I'm told it was Gundam Wing), nativity setting and religious prayer statues, dinosaurs, sayings like 'we educate our own children', 'god bless america', and 'drive safely', cannons, an old style train, dragons, and much more. It was like Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch. I thought it was so strange that I sent a photo of it to Mark Moran of Weird US, and he of course knew exactly where it was right away. He replied that it belonged to some enigmatic Korean dude that no one really seems to know much about.We continued on Rt 9 through Bass River with nice views out into Edwin Forsyth National Wildlife Refuge. With the sun going down, it looked extra pretty. We crossed the bridge over the river, with nice views of Viking Yachting Club and Allen's Dock. Behind us, a new Garden State Parkway bridge was under construction. We went under the parkway and were soon in New Gretna where the cars were parked, to complete the hike. Everyone did great, and we shuttled back to the other cars. Some of the group went out for a buffet dinner, but Brandan and I  held off for Taco Bell, because we were heading to Decemberween at Carol and Rob Creamer's house, an annual event.Only one more hike that I had previously been dreading stood in my way of doing the next great beach hikes near Brigantine. I'm not thinking it's not only not going to be so bad, but it will actually be a pretty good time. Jason, Amanda, and I discussed some of the stuff to do in the area, and now I'm convinced it will be a great time!