Hike #738; Cape May National Wildlife Refuge to Jake's Landing

Hike #738; Cape May National Wildlife Refuge to Jake's Landing

11/17/13 Cape May National Wildlife Refuge (Woodcock Trail) to Jake's Landing with Brandan Jermyn, Cory Salveson, Carla ?, Jennifer Berndt, Pam Berndt, Tom Vorrius, Daniel Stone, Beata "Maya" Blatkiewicz, Monika Kwiekinska, Robin Cullen, Robin's gf, Gregg Hudis, Rob Creamer, and ???

On Cook's Beach

Our next hike, the next in the series to hike the entire perimeter of NJ would take us down along the Delaware Bay to the area of Cape May Courthouse where we'd last left off with Cook's Beach.

Like with so many other hikes, I scale them off to see the mileage and such following the hike. I was surprised to see during the scaling of this one a few things that I'd missed toward the end. There was a section of beach I might or might not be able to walk through on depending on the tides, and there were two trails within Cape May National Wildlife Refuge that I had neglected to cover, the southernmost one being the Woodcock Nature Trail off of Woodcock Road, a cul de sac from Delsea Drive that we'd walked the last time. There was no trail connection out of there, but there are several loops in the woods of that vicinity, and around fields. In order to cover all of the reasonably walkable perimeter of the state, I would need to do this, plus it's a substantial trail system I wanted to cover.

I had to go back to the drawing board and look at the following perimeter hikes I'd planned and re-align them to compensate for this extra that would be on this one. The hike was originally supposed to end at the Nature Conservancy's Eldora Nature Preserve, but because I added more onto the the beginning it had to end at Jake's Landing, a dead end road to the brackish estuarine wetlands of the bay.

I met the group at Eldora as planned, but then we all shuttled to Jake's Landing, and then beyond to Woodcock Nature Trail. The parking for this place was off the end of the cul de sac, and very easy to miss if one didn't know it was there. In addition to the trails, re-aligning this hike also gave us the opportunity to do the visits of two wineries, Jessie Creek and Natali.

We started our hike off by following the trail into the fields, and keeping to the left. It crossed a long open area and then entered the woodlands of Atlantic White Cedar and other trees. It was really easy to lose our bearings in this trail system. It wasn't well marked, and looked similar enough that I once looped us back right on where we had come from. I had to use my phone GPS to make certain we were keeping to the outside. We tried heading all the way out toward the beach, but it an area of wetlands that we could not cross. Someone had put some boards and such onto the wetlands so that I could get out a little further that I might otherwise, but I couldn't go that far. We turned back from this area, which was worth it for the view, and continued on the trail system back along the north side to reach the parking area again.

We followed Woodcock Road, and just at around 11 ended up at Jessie Creek Winery, pretty much perfect timing. I had called the guy who runs it earlier in the week to make certain we were okay to come in as a group.

This place was really first class. We were warmly greeted as we went inside, looking straight on to their counter. We were ushered into their room to the right of the counter, with large round tables and seats. It was very spacious and comfortable unlike so many other places we've visited for tastings. It was easy to get comfortable and feel at home.

Each one of us got a glass, $5 each for the tasting which came with a Jessie Creek glass. It was well worth it because they gave us a taste of everything they had. With the set up, we were served seated, which I'd never had at a Winery before. It was very relaxed, and help us to really enjoy it more. Our host walked around the table and told us about each of the wines her was serving. In particular, his cranberry and blueberry wines were the most outstanding I'd ever tasted. It was explained that less sugar was added than is done with most wineries. I think that this really complimented the taste quite a lot. It was just the right amount, not too sweet. I couldn't resist the urge to get a bottle, nor could most of the others.

Our hosts also talked to us about our hike, and gave us some insight on what we had ahead, including the tides. I had been checking the tide charts on my phone, which showed that we were on the way to the lowest the tide would be for the time, and we were just past the full moon which meant it would be extra low. This meant we might get across the next creek inlet and get in a much longer section of beach walking than previously anticipated. We were cautioned though that the tide here and the tide twenty miles north of here could be entirely different.

From the winery, we made our way to Kimbles Beach Road, which was I believe one road south of Cook's Beach Road, which we followed the previous time. Along this road, we were able to turn off to the right side and follow some of the Songbird Trail, more of Cape May National Wildlife Refuge. There was a small visitor's center to the left, with a mowed trail to the right. This became a crushed stone surface trail that took us  out and around some fields that were very pleasant.

We made our way back out to the road and followed it further toward the beach. We passed a couple of homes, though I don't remember them. It was extremely foggy when we got out toward the water. When we stepped out to the beach, we literally could not see in front of us more than fifty feet at best.

No matter, I had already been on the beach to the north of here. This made it all the more eerie and interesting to walk. We followed the beach to the north, and then had to wade across a little stream. It was so warm on this occasion that it didn't matter, almost like a Spring or late Summer day although it was November. All of us were in tee shirts I'm sure by this point.

We headed north and passed the entrance to Cook's Beach Road. We then crossed the creek I had crossed the last time, which was only slightly higher than it was for me on that occasion. This was perfect. We got right across both tributaries which meant we could follow the beach continuously all the way to Bidwell Creek, where we'd head back inland. For me, getting through these spots felt like a great success. The rest of the hike could not fail.

We headed north on the beach, as the fog around us remained just as thick. We soon came upon the first homes from Reed's Beach. I was expecting these homes to be occupied and that we'd have to walk the nearby road, but that was not the case. They seemed all to be abandoned. Some of the group emptied the sand from their shoes, and then we continued along the water.

We soon saw why the homes were vacant. They had vallen victim to Tropical Storm Sandy and had not yet been repaired. Maybe they would never be. Some homes were missing their entire front halves. I wasn't expecting to see devastation like this a year after the event. We continued along the beach and saw air conditioners in the sand, and vertical beams upon which buildings and decks should be sitting, but are not. It almost felt disjointed, like it wasn't real.

We came to a point where we had maybe a half a foot of beach to walk on beside a vertical wooden platform, which was also interesting. There were spots where houses were missing altogether, though to look at them at first glance one might think it's just a dock site.

As we continued near the last houses, we heard voices off into the water, but could not see anyone. Soon, a vessel came into sight. There were people lost and looking for the Bidwell Creek entrance. They'd gotten into the fog of the Delaware and got lost. They were unable to get back in. Cory and I both had our cell phones handy. I got mine out and checked to see how close we were to it. We told them they were maybe three hundred feet off from the creek base on what we saw. We didn't even realize we were that close to it ourselves before looking! They had to head out a little bit in order to get beyond the jetty at the creek entrance.

We soon reached that jetty and walked out it to have a look around. There were four guys out there at the end fishing, so we stopped to talk to them. They had some beers, which they shared with me, so I gave them some wine. We talked for a bit about what we were doing, and they told us about their fishing, and how noone bothered them out there. Certainly, it was a nice spot.

While we stood out on the jetty, the thankful boaters pulled in to the Bidwell Creek, thanking us once gain for helping them get out of a jam. We headed back out the jetty, and then along the creek for a short time to the end of the paved road, North Beach Drive. We followed it back to the south. It was amazing the difference between the water's edge and this road, only a short distance inland. The fog had nearly lifted, though we could still see more of it out on the estuaries inland a bit too.

We continued on Reed's Beach Road and followed it back out to Delsea Drive, then turned left to follow it north. We continued on the road across the Bidwell Creek a bit further up, and after a bit reached the Natali Vinyards. This was the next winery for us to try.

Natali had quite a few people around, with a nice large sitting area outside. The tasting room was similar to most other tasting rooms, with the counter and such, but also a wide enough area for standing so that we could pretty much all be in there and not be too crowded. We paid $5 which got us tastes I believe of ten different wines. They had a very long list, so we had to pick and choose which ones we wanted to try.

I recall one of my favorites here being the blackberry wine. I'd not often seen blackberry wine anywhere, and so was interested in it to begin with. I think I got some of the blueberry to go though. Not everyone came in for this tasting, not because it wasn't good quality, but because they were starting to get tired by this point.

We had a very enthusiastic presentation about the wine and had a very nice time at Natali, and the wine was quite good. We'll have to revisit earlier in a hike I think.

We continued north for a long time on Delsea, through the village of Goshen where we checked out the old churches and cemeteries. We had to pretty much stick with the road until we got to the Cape May Bird Observatory located near the wetlands of Sluice Creek. We headed toward the observation area, which had a nice little pavilion thing. We sat in it for a break briefly, then followed a short trail around the north side of it and back to Delsea Drive.

We crossed the Sluice Creek on the road bridge, then continued north for a long while, then cut across a church yard next to a cemetery as we entered the village of South Dennis. There is an abandoned railroad line that closely parallels Delsea Drive for a better walking route that I opted to take after the long road walk. School House Road, where we turned by the cemetery, apparently used to cross the tracks but now no longer does. We crossed from one side to the other, but the tracks were at first too overgrown to walk. We turned left, parallel with them on Meerwald Road, then were able to turn onto them to head north when a path joined and they were clearer. We headed north and passed beneath Rt 83.

Beyond the underpass, the rail line went over a causeway across Dennis Creek. We couldn't see a lot because it was starting to get dark, but it was really cool being out on those wetlands on the abandonment. It seemed like forever we were on the tracks, and then we came to a line of abandoned railroad cars as we entered the town of Dennisville area. We kept to the right side of the tracks, and the train just kept on going on. We ended up having to crawl between rail cars to get to the other side. We had to wait up and regroup when we got to where we wanted to cut off of the tracks, at Gatzmer Ave. This worked out just fine, and we continued out to reach the Wawa at Main Street and Rt 47/Delsea. We cut across the back of the Wawa, then went right on Delsea past Johnson Pond, a very large lake. We couldn't see much of it though because by this time it was totally dark.

We went past Ludlam's Pond too, and then eventually reached Jake's Landing Road. This road walk went on forever. It was still about 1.4 miles out to the end of Jake's Landing as well. Along the way, we passed the Ludlam Cemetery, a nearly forgotten cemetery from the 1700s marked with one marble marker.

We staggered down the roadway in the dark to the cars. I barely remember anything else from the road. I know everyone was pretty tired. We couldn't quite think right. I think we become zombiefied by the combination of the road walking and wine, but then again without the wine we might not have gotten through all that necessary road walking. It's a drag that so much road must be followed to do the perimeter of the state, but there are nice bits that were worth visiting, that we certainly wouldn't have seen otherwise. I definitely wouldn't take it back.

I don't even remember the ride back to my car in the beginning of the hike. From the end, Jen got a ride to the beginning not realizing that her car was parked in the lot at the end. It wasn't a big deal, but I think that's what we were all feeling.

Overall this was a great hike, from the fields of the national wildlife refuge, wineries, beach and some wading, roads, and the railroad tracks, it was something really unique that came of an area that I had anticipated would be brutally boring. All of the coming hikes in this series are looking like they will be very unique and special in their own ways too.

I keep thinking to myself that I want to complete the series of hikes around the NJ Perimeter, but then again, why? These hikes, though often involve long road walks, lead us to so many great little places, memorable experiences together that we would never have had without this initiative. Hikes like this remind me to just slow down and enjoy the show, because it's not about the goal, it's about the journey.