Hike #1620; Whiting to Toms River

Hike #1620: Whiting to Toms River with Jennifer Tull, Diane Reider, David Adams, Sue Bennett, Justin Gurbisz, Brittany Weider, Diane Reider, Kirk Rohn, Mike Heaney, David "Captain Soup" Campbell, Heshy Bucholz, Violet Chen, Sam Chen, Dan Lurie, ? and ?.

This next trip would be a point to point, focusing on the historic rights of way of the Central Railroad of New Jersey in the northern Pine Barrens region.

This hike came about in an interesting way. I'd basically sworn off doing late Summer south Jersey hikes for one big reason: chiggers. These species of mites inject digestive enzymes into the skin which breaks down skin cells so that they can digest it. The area affected will itch severely, a form of dermatitis. I'd had them a couple of times before badly, and didn't want to deal with it again.

However, my dear old friend Captain Soup reached out to me in the weeks prior to the hike and let me know he would be back to NJ for an extended vacation, but that he would be staying in south Jersey.

He asked me if I would come up with a south Jersey hike for him so that he wouldn't have to commute as far for it. I decided I would make an exception for Captain Soup, and started looking over what hikes might be appropriate for his visit.

I didn't want to just throw something out there. I wanted this hike to be something substantial on my list of things to do. There is a long list, but some things are higher than others.

I also wanted to be sure that I could have some sort of swimming spots along the way. 

I looked over the options, and I came up with a route that was something on my "to do" list for quite some time, featuring the next leg of the former Central Railroad of New Jersey.

I'd done all of the line from Whiting south to Atsion, and there was more I wanted to have a look at north of there. I figured there was enough parallel public land to move through with the stroller to do this without having a problem with the railroad. Affiliates of the line had reached out to me after the last hike out there, and so I didn't want to step on any toes with that. I figured I had a good hike that covered a short bit of the line heading north from Whiting, and we could mostly stay on public roads and such to get on through.

The first leg of the hike would be tracing the line from Whiting to Lakehurst, and then the second leg would be the Barnegat Branch to the east, to Toms River. I had already done the latter of these as part of one of my hikes back in 2010, but being 14 years earlier, I figure it would be worth looking at again.

I had to figure on a good meeting point, and so I looked into the Toms River Park and Ride, located a short distance off of the Garden State Parkway on Highland Parkway South.

This time, I tried some new stuff in order to try to push more of the Metrotrails cause. Dan had encouraged me to post stuff through other groups including Next Door and Eventbright. I had used Eventbright in the past, many years before, but no longer had an accout, so I started one. It operated much like meetup, but wasn't as convenient.

Next Door I have not used yet, and I still have to claim the page that Dan started for it, but I hope to do some of that as well.

Through Eventbright, it seems we picked up a couple of new people. There were a couple of young girls who showed up, and one older woman. The problem was, they were not familiar with the group or the time it would take. I thought I had everything pretty well spelled out, but none of these three that showed up were prepared to be walking eight or so hours.

The older woman left from the meeting point, but was not too upset. She just didn't realize the distance or how long that would take. The two young ladies decided that they would drive to the starting point and hike with us for as long as they could, and then turn back when they had to. They had work or something later.

The complications were not limited to the newcomers and their misunderstanding of our routine. The lot I had chosen, which I thought was free, charged for parking. I didn't want to bother with that, and so we all moved our cars up the road, to another park and ride that was in fact free, closer to the Garden State Parkway, and off of the Lakehurst Road and Exit 81.

Once we had all of the vehicles in this lot, we shuttled with as few as possible to the west to begin our hike in Whiting. One final starting complication was that the two new girls decided to drive to the start so that they could turn back and cut out early, and when they pulled out, they backed into Captain Soup's rental car! Things were just going awry from the start!

From here, things were much smoother. We shuttled the cars to Whiting Town Center area, which was a large strip mall in the very center of the settlement.

This familiar spot had changed a bit since our last visit. There used to be a grocery store in the plaza, I think a Stop and Shop or something, and it was now closed. It is amazing that something like that would not make it in an area that really has nothing else going on, and hardly anywhere else to shot that I'm aware of.

This was the fifth time we had convened to hike from this location. It was a major railroad junction community, for being in the middle of nowhere.

From the north side of the parking area, we walked to the south. Ev stayed out of the stroller for a bit. Although our trajectory was actually to the north, I wanted to go to the actual junction site again.

First, I had several historic photos I had tried to emulate in the past, and didn't get them quite right, as well as some new ones I'd never gotten before. Further, I wanted to give the group an idea of the importance of the site, and each of the railroads that converged here.

We headed around the buildings and out to Diamond Road, which curves and runs on the Pennsylvania Railroad's Atlantic Division right of way, and is so named for the diamond where this line crossed the Jersey Central tracks, the only line that is still extant through town.

Originally the Raritan and Delaware Bay Railroad opened in the early 1850s, this line became the New Jersey Southern Railroad, and then the Southern Division of the Central Railroad of NJ. The northern end became the Red Bank Branch.

The line traveled from the Raritan Bay at Port Monmouth down to Bay Side on the Delaware Bay, by way of notable towns such as Red Bank, Lakehurst, Atsion, Winslow, and Bridgeton.

Rails are still in place much of the distance from Red Bank to Bridgeton, but the northern and western bits are long gone.

I had been following this line for years as parts of a lot of other hikes. The first segment of traced was the nearly forgotten bit from Red Bank to the Seashore Branch of the Jersey Central up in the Atlantic Highlands near Leonardo. Sections below Red Bank are still quite active, so when I get to those, it will be on parallel roads.

I'd also followed as close as we could to the bit from Bay Side to Bridgeton. In the middle, I've walked it all between Whiting and Atsion. Paralleling this line north from Whiting would be the first theme of this one.

The east-west route, the Pennsylvania Railroad Atlantic Division, had been the subject of a series we did that completed at the very beginning of the 2020 pandemic. I was and still am somewhat confused about how this pieced together.

The first part of the Atlantic Division was chartered in the 1840s, proposed as a horse car railroad to pass through some of the towns on its way to Mt. Holly.

 The horse car railroad never came to be, but the same charter was used to create the Burlington and Camden County Railroad in 1866, which achieved the goal of connecting Camden with Mt. Holly.

The line was extended east with some little branches as far as Pemberton, where the Pemberton and Hightstown (later the Union Transportation) continued to the north through Fort Dix, New Egypt, and other points. That station at North Pemberton was a union station used by both lines that connected there.

A junction, in a place called Birmingham, just west of Pemberton, is where the Atlantic Division continued to the south side of Pemberton and beyond.

This section was originally built from what I can understand as a branch of the New Jersey Southern Railroad, known as the Pemberton and New York Railroad.

It’s an interesting point that this line, an 18.25 mile stretch from Pemberton to Whiting, became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad rather than the Central Railroad of New Jersey like the rest of the New Jersey Southern lines. Pennsylvania Railroad started operating the stretch August 1, 1878, and was sold to PRR on March 31st, 1879. 

Looking at the map today, it appears to be a seamless, simple route that would have been planned, built, and managed similarly right from the start, but simply was not the case.

This Pennsylvania Railroad branch was reportedly abandoned in 1965.

The Tuckerton Railroad was established in 1871 and connected from a three-way junction with the Pennsylvania Railroad Atlantic Division and NJ Southern Railroad/CNJ, down to Bamber, through Lacey, then Waretown and Barnegat on the way to Tuckerton. Through connections it served shore point tourism, as well as industrial and agricultural use including peaches and cranberries.

Use declined, and that line was scrapped in 1940.

Today, there is almost no sign at all that there was ever more than one railroad passing through this location.

The handsome old station that stood on the southeast quadrant of the diamond between the PRR and CNJ is long gone, but the foundation can be seen, surrounded by a white composite material fence.

Similarly, the turntable used by the Tuckerton Railroad has partially been bulldozed in, but a portion of it, also surrounded by a white sort of plastic fence, can be seen just barely to the south on Station Road.

I went over some of this history with the group at the site, and then we left the station site to continue on. The group got on the tracks from there, which apparently everybody walks based on the trash along the way and retail stores nearby.

I didn't get on the tracks. I went out to Station Road, turned left, and then continued with the stroller north, on a good paved path parallel with them. Ev stayed with the group and had a nice walk on the tracks for a bit.

We continued north to the grade crossing of Lacey Road. Everyone else had come out to the path by this point except Ev and I think Jenny stayed back with him. He didn't want to get off the tracks.

I made Ev get in the stroller in this next bit because we were going across a very busy road, and then would be along the edge of a road for a while.

We passed into Bowker Memorial Field on the other side of the road, which is next to the tracks. We walked along the parking lot and then through the grass to the north through this park, and then when there was nowhere else to go, there was a bit of a path downhill, across the tracks, and then back up on the other side to Manchester Blvd. I was able to rather easily get the stroller up and down, and we turned right at the top.

On one of the side streets to the left, there was a yard sale going on. Brittany asked why we weren't stopping at it. She was right, I was in too big a hurry and stressed over things. We should have gone over to check it out, but I was in too much of a hurry.

We continued north on Manchester, and the tracks were below us in a cut to the right. They were mostly clear and would have been easy to walk, and some asked me why we weren't down there. For one, that would have been tough with the stroller, and two, I was asked not to walk those tracks without permission, and I was going to try to only stay to the side roads if at all possible, ahead.

It was about a mile of the edge of the road we had to follow out of Whiting, but I didn't see a better way to get around any of it. I should have told the group they could go walk the tracks if they felt like it, but I didn't. I just wanted to avoid any trouble.

We continued to the north, and sometimes the shoulder of the road got a bit narrow. Usually it was okay.

We eventually came to a four way intersection, where Wranglebrook Road turns to the right. Wrangle Brook is a tributary that flows into the Toms River to the east. At this intersection, the new Wrangle Brook Preserve has an access immediately to the right. 

I could not find any maps of this area online anywhere. It seems like it is an Ocean County park, but nothing of it is listed on their website. All I could find were articles stating that the property was recently preserved, and that it backed up to Whiting Wildlife Management Area.

The trail was an old sand road that pretty closely paralleled the tracks, and it was blazed blue.

The sand was sometimes hard to push the stroller through, but it wasn't terrible. Overall very pleasant, the trail route meandered only slightly. We were barely out of sight from the tracks.

When the official blue trail turned to the right in this preserve, we continued straight on an unmarked old woods road, which remains a bit closer to the tracks. 

I think in this area we might have entered the first part of Whiting Wildlife Management Area. We continued on this informal trail for a bit, and it eventually started to weave to the right, farther away from the tracks. Some of the group was following me through this, but after a bit of time, with no way of cutting through to any of the clearings, I knew we had gone pretty much the wrong way and would have to backtrack.

We backtracked a bit, and reached a point below the Jersey Central tracks. There was no choice from here but to parallel these much more closely, below them where they were up on a substantial mound.

We made our way to a crossing, which I thought was part of the wildlife management area, but apparently it wasn't. Some of the group turned down the road to try to find myself and the others that followed me going the wrong way. 

The two new girls turned back just before the crossing to get to their cars, citing that they had work that night to get back to.

From this point, we couldn't even tell we were walking near tracks for a while. They were out in a more open area, and the amount of sand blowing around in many cases almost completely covered them over.

There was a huge, wide open sandy area ahead. Justin, Brittany, and Diane went exploring in the direction where they were looking for us, but the rest of us continued parallel with the tracks to the north. They brought us beyond the sandy area and into an area of woods. The tracks were down in a cut, but we stayed on an ATV trail on a height of land above them.

As we continued ahead, there was water off to the left of us. We turned down another ATV path and followed the edge of the water that way, which was quite nice looking. It was all pretty shallow, but it was brutally hot outside, so I laid in it to cool off. I found out later that this might have been one of the nuclear test water areas. Oh boy! I'm alive so far.

Justin, Brittany, and Diane joined us again in this area, and we had a nice break in the shade at the edge of the clearing. Brittany went to the water to take a dip, but she was a bit grossed out by it, so didn't go in much.

I was satisfied enough cooling off at this area. I was thinking of taking a side trip to the east from here, to a place known as Crystal Lake, which is owned by I think Heritage Minerals. It had been publicized as a wonderful private swimming beach, but people have been getting thrown out of there because it got overrun with people. I didn't know what to think we'd find walking there.

I decided we wouldn't do the side trip to it at this point because we already took this other trip to the north. We just made our way back to the ATV paths we had been following, and continued to take them along the height of land above the former Jersey Central line.

Eventually, the line went right along the water, and swamp lands around it were inundating the right of way. We ended up having to get close to the tracks in order to get through. The parallel ATV path was barely there, and a lot of what was on the right was encroaching pretty badly.

We continued to follow through, and just after emerging from the immense wetlands, there was a crossing ATV trail from the right. It turned, and then followed the right of way on the left to the north toward Lakehurst. We opted to take that option to the north, parallel toward Lakehurst.

While we were walking this stretch, Mike Heaney was discussing politics with me, and Robert Kennedy's presidential run came up.

Mike was presenting it to me that Kennedy was just a total nut, and went on to describe some stuff. Before he went on with the story, I insisted that the media pushes such feelings about him.

Mike started the story off that Kennedy was with friends heading home from upstate New York after doing some falconry, "as one does", he said. I responded that that was cool. 

He went on to say that somehow, I forget all of the details, but they either hit a bear cub on the highway or found a dead bear cub. Kennedy stopped and picked it up, thinking bear meat is good, but then his friends convinced him to play a joke and leave the dead cub in Central Park in Manhattan, because it would cause some sort of uproar, people thinking there are bears in Central Park.

Mike went on to say what a crazy thing it was. I was laughing and I explained to him that this story makes me like Kennedy even more! It was actually a pretty funny prank! I told him I would totally do something like that, and I've certainly done things that are far worse than that. Mike paused, as if he'd had some sort of epiphany, and said "You're right!"

Later on, Mike sent me another story about Kennedy cutting off a dead whale's head, and his text read to "please invite Kennedy out on a Metrotrails hike"!

You know, I'm tempted to do it, but how would I go about inviting somebody like Kennedy out with us?

The only remaining impediment to the trip on this line was the crossing of the Union Branch.

Union Branch is a stream, a tributary of the Toms River. It is common term for streams in southern areas, especially Maryland. We don't see the term "creek" and such down there as much. Everything is either a branch, or sometimes an entire stream is confusingly called a "falls".

We reached the Union Branch, and were easily able to cross it on the rail bridge. Ev's stroller got stuck in it so we had to take him out, but we were soon across and following the line to the north and right alongside through a sort of apartment or townhouse complex into downtown Lakehurst.

We turned left when we got to Union Avenue and walked in toward the town a bit. The idea was that we were going to stop for lunch, but it was so brutally hot out that we made it no further than Mrs. Walker's Ice Cream Parlor. We all took a break here inside and many of us got ice cream. I got some sort of vanilla thing, and Ev shared with me. He wanted chocolate, but they let him have a sample bit of that. He wouldn't have been able to eat an entire chocolate thing anyway.

We made our way back from the ice cream parlor toward the tracks again on Union Avenue, and I was trying to figure out where the railroad station used to be. I assumed a location north of Union Ave.

Careful review of maps and historic aerial images revealed that I was wrong, and the station building was apparently between the split between the Jersey Central southern main and the Barnegat Branch.

This location, just about at Union Avenue, was where the Barnegat Branch broke off to the east.

Tracks were still in directly from the junction, but they were cut a short distance from the Union Road crossing, so nothing more could use it.

When I had last hiked this back in February of 2010, we hiked to Lakehurst, and finished in the dark.

At that time, the Barnegat Branch was well out of service, but there were still tracks in that were quite clear in a lot of the cases. Either way, there was always a clear path following them if we couldn't be right on the tracks. I wrongfully assumed that this day would be like that.

We walked to the right, and there was a spot where tracks went under some sort of loading contraption, which was supposed to serve industry of some sort and either never did, or did only for a short time.

I thought at first that this was the branch, but I was wrong, the branch went off to the left of this. I couldn't see it because it was completely overgrown where it turned away.

I think some of the group was getting ready to go and follow a parallel road to the north, but I didn't want to give up just yet. I walked beyond the contraption, toward the tree line where those tracks ended, and then found a faint trail that followed the tree line down and up, and then over to the tracks of the Barnegat Branch.

Dan had fallen behind us on the approach to Lakehurst, and wasn't a big fan of the trestle over the Union Branch. He got across, but then decided to Uber out and head home a bit early.

There was no clear parallel path, but inside the tracks were clear enough to follow. People had been using this route to walk for certain.

The line was established in 1866 as the Toms River Railroad, from Lakehurst to Toms River only. It was extended to Waretown in 1872 as the Toms River and Waretown Railroad. In 1881, it was purchased by the Jersey Central, and it was transferred to the Toms River and Barnegat Railroad, operated by the CNJ. It was extended to Barnegat about 1893. There, it made a connection with the Tuckerton Railroad, which ran side by side with it for a time between Waretown and Barnegat.

Passenger service ended in the 50s, and freight continued to the 70s. Conrail took over the line, and I think it was abandoned in 1977 in the section south of Toms River, except for maybe a couple of late movements to a sand pulverizing company. The line was removed south of Toms River in 1981.

The section from Lakehurst to a point in Manchester Township just west of Toms River remained in service later, and the tracks are still in place up until that point, although very overgrown compared to what I saw when we walked it in early 2010.

The Barnegat Branch Trail was developed starting I think in 2000 on the section south of Toms River, and more sections of it were developed over the years up until just this year with the completion of one of the final bits. 

I don't know if the intent will ever be to connect west to Lakehurst. There are a lot of people commenting on the Metrotrails posts to reactivate the entire branch at least to Toms River, but this comes across as rather silly because an east-west line from there really doesn't serve any purpose. It doesn't take any traffic away from the Parkway. The problem is, there are some folks that just get enamored by any little piece of remaining rail and holler about reactivation.

Hiking the bridge in 2010

We made our way along these tracks, and it was really rough. I wasn't able to push Ev in the stroller over this very easily. Fortunately, because it was railroad tracks and he loves those, he walked a while.

It was a really brutal push for a lot of this, but I held onto hope based on aerial images that this would get easier as we continued on.

Pretty soon, we reached the bridge over the Union Branch. The ties and all were in pretty good shape, but the approaches were amazingly overgrown over the years.

There was a path that went down to the water to the right, so I wasted absolutely no time going down and getting into it.

This was actually a great spot for a break, so we all stopped on the bridge, and Brittany and I went into the water below the other side. This was a bad spot, because when I went to get in, there was a sharp object directly under the bridge. I cut my hand on it getting down, so I told her we should go to the other side where I'd been in before to cool off.

After the dip, I felt quite a bit better, but the walking didn't get any easier. We continued right over the center of the ties, in the gauge of the overgrown rails.

We continued through the mess for a bit, but it was too hard to continue on along this. The tracks were also getting more and more overgrown.

It wasn't far, but it seemed it, until we got to a side path to the right.

This path led out to the Manchester Township High School. We actually could have gone left and followed a utility clearing more close to the right of way, but I didn't realize it at the time. The easiest route looked to be to our right, so we went through woods, and I got some help over a small bridge over a ditch spanned with a piece of wood or a railroad tie.

We paralleled the school's track area through woods briefly, and then cut out to the edge of the grass in their athletic fields. 

We continued to the south, skirting the north side of the fields somewhat near to the tracks. We came to a chain link fence on the north side of it, and had to follow it to the right out of the way a bit, until we came to a small opening. This brought us onto a path out to South Colonia Drive.

We turned left here, toward the track crossing, but seeing how badly overgrown it was, I chose to follow a right turn first, on a side road parallel with the tracks that passed through the park of the Lower Manchester Township Soccer Association. We passed through a long parking lot, and then around a gate. A paved path led further into the property. When the path turned left and right around the fields, we kept to the right along the edge of the grass, on the south side of the fields.

We made our way out to another parking area at Summit Park in Manchester Twp. There was a playground on the left, so we stopped to let Ev play for a bit while I looked over the maps to see how things would go ahead.

My plan had been that we were going to check out this Crystal Lake property, which is apparently owned by Heritage Minerals. I now know that the problem is a huge issue with people coming in and riding ATVs, swimming, and treating it as a private beach.

Especially during pandemic times, this became a huge problem, and several people trying to swim across the small body of water drowned, probably because they were totally drunk, but also because the water is reportedly very cold and they cramp up more than they'd expected to.

The deep bod of water, Crystal Lake, is actually the ASARCO Titanium Mine, or Heritage Minerals Mine. The deep water-filled recess was where rare earths, titanium, zircon, and zirconium were taken from heavy minerals in the Cohansey formation, and it has been named a hazardous waste site.

The seven thousand acre site has been proposed for a massive development, with the lake being a centerpiece in it. The owners propose some 4,000 units to go in, and it looks like at least some of that will happen, although they go back and forth between the NJ DEP and Pinelands as I understand.

Swimming and ATVs were becoming such a problem that police in Manchester have had to patrol it very regularly.

While we were at Summit Park, a vehicle came in, I think from Connecticut, with a trailer and two ATVs on it. They went back and forth looking around, apparently for a way into this site. We watched them as they went through, and eventually left the municipal park, which has a lot of signs reading that ATVs and motor vehicles of any kind are not allowed. 

Ev played and ran around for a while, but not so much on the playground as much as running the entire open area looking at everything around.

We eventually made our way from this area, which was covered in cameras I realized as we were leaving, and headed out to Alexander Ave to the left to reach the tracks again.

The tracks were totally overgrown. If I didn't have the stroller, we would have bullied through, but I figured we would follow the nearest road.

Parallel Howard Avenue was shown like it went through, and we started walking down it, but it was soon obviously a private driveway, and so we turned back. I tried cutting through the woods to the tracks again a bit down this, but it was too rough. We had to backtrack all the way to Alexander.

We headed from here across the tracks on Alexander, and then made the first right onto Charles Avenue in a parallel development.

2010

Where Charles turns to the north, a short dead end stub of a street called Franklin Place goes to the right. It looked as though an ATV path went to the tracks from the end of it.

When we got there, sure enough, the path went through, but it was somewhat blocked along the end of the last yard, and there was no way through to the next townhouse development over. I didn't want to go all the way around on this, so I just hurried on through on the path, which led me right down to the tracks.

We moved ahead a few feet, and came to the crossing of Bone Hill Road. A side road from this to the south of the tracks and to the left led toward the Crystal Lake, and I figured we might do this, but then there were signs, a crazy amount of them, blocking these roads.

Understandably, the home on the private land straight ahead had an incredible amount of signs on it. I suspect it must get very frustrating all of the people going back their lane trying to get to the water. 

There were "no trespassing" and "private property" signs, but also cameras, a "do not enter" sign that had mountains painted on it stating "Kyle Compound", probably referring to the rioting issue from during the pandemic looting. Another sign read "we don't call 911" with a gun on it. Other signs read "not fucking SARCO", and "no pinche SARCO".

I'd be willing to bet that even with all of these signs, there are probably idiots that end up on their property and near their home anyway. 

We were not going to be part of the problem, so we continued on along the tracks, which at this point had a good ATV path along the left side of them heading east.

The walking got to be more pleasant here. We were on a path on the power line pretty close to the tracks, which sometimes went down into a bit of a cut, but we had good treadway.

A power line clearing crossed to the right and left, and there was soon a very wide sandy route to the right of us, and we were closer to the edge of the tracks.

While we walked this, we could see vehicles going in to the Heritage Minerals property via the power line. There was one four wheel drive vehicle stuck in the sand on the right, and a group of guys were trying to push it out as we went by.

We continued along the path on the north side, and as we approached the next access point, which I think was Northampton Blvd, there was another car driving down this trying to get to the lake.

I couldn't believe that anyone was trying to tak a regular car down this. I was having enough trouble occasionally trying to get the stroller through the loose sand. If the four wheel drive thing earlier got stuck, this car was seriously going to have a tough time.

Also in this section, we passed by a large utility pole that I'd recognized from walking this back in 2010.

The sign read "I pooped somewhere in this area. Enjoy", and it had an arrow that pointed at a pile of poop drawn with spray paint below.

I was surprised that the entire thing hadn't been spray painted over in over 14 years. Apparently, everyone in the area has seen this and knows the site.

After the Northampton Road access to the tracks, there were paths on both sides of them. This area had obviously been washed out at some point, because the tracks were further up in the air, with some of the ties undermined by water. A small pond was on the north side near a local bus depot.

We continued on pretty easily and crossed Bimini Drive next, and then on across St. Catherine Blvd.

We were able to easily stay along the tracks to the next crossing, at Bananier Drive crossing. Here, the tracks got to be badly overgrown ahead.

We turned off to the right where there was some good shade on the east side of the crossing, and we sat down for a little break.

I figured on a way that might get us through by following some parallel roads from here. After our break, we went slightly south on Bananier Drive, and then turned left on Jamaica Blvd.

This was one of those roads that people obviously don't walk along often. We got a lot of interesting looks as our group walked through.

We continued on the road until we got to the entrance to Holiday City Plaza on the left side. We cut across some grass and then along the edge of the parking area to the north.

At the west end of the lot, there was a small path that went up and over to the tracks. I checked it out, but there was no good way through to follow it with the stroller. 

We headed back out to the parking lot, and continued along the back of it. This brought us to a bit of a slope, where the next lot for a Complete Care facility was below us. 

A narrower sandy path went up and maintained height of the land, and moved on closer to the edge of the tracks again.

It was in this area that the tracks end. The old main line from here has no tracks, and there was a spur that was still tracked going off to the left, parallel with Germania Station Road, and apparently went to serve a BASF plant.

I don't know where the Germania Station used to be or what it looked like, but it was clearly somewhere near here.

There were some evergreens planted along the back of a facility, and then the path became wider and easier to following heading to the east.

We soon reached and crossed Mule Road, a larger four lane highway. The right of way was very easy walking beyond this point, and wide.

Sam joined us somewhere in this area on the abandonment and finished the hike with us.

We continued parallel with lots of residential area toward Toms River, and then crossed over Wrangle Brook Road. The brook itself was parallel with us just to the south in the developments.

We continued through from here across Southampton Road, and there were secondary pathways to the right a bit, which were more in the shade. We moved onto those for a bit of the time.

In this area of woods to the south, the Wrangle Brook and the Davenport Branch come together. 

We continued onward until we reached the area of the Silver Ridge Apartments to the north of the right of way. Just ahead of here, the railroad used to cross over a bridge across the Winding River I think it is, a tributary of the Toms River.

When I had done any walking on this in the past, we ended up having to go to the south and cross the stream on a large pipe. Unfortunately, when we parked initially in the morning, I could see a chain link fence had been erected over the right of way, so there was no way we could walk through there even if we did cross that way.

I was prepared to walk to the north anyway instead of trying to get through, because of the stroller.

Just before the bridge site, we took a side path to the left up into the apartment area, and then turned to the right through the grass.

We passed by an athletic court with maybe badminton or volleyball stuff, and a basktball hoop, but it was in terrible condition and not maintained at all.

We turned to the north along Edgewood Drive, but walked along walkways associated with the townhouse buildings. We then turned right into a parking area for a couple of the townhouses, and then to the left through a large grassy swath behind one of them.

After a short bit, there was an opening through trees, which brought us out into the parking area for Everside Health. A right turn from here took us into the lot for another medical facility.

I didn't realize it at the time, but we were walking through the lot of Andrew Trontis's office! This is the son of my old friend and long time Director through my job, John Trontis!

From here, we turned right on Lakehurst Road. This brought us across the Winding River, with a bit of a nice view. The shoulder of the highway was not great, but we managed it.

Pretty soon, after a slight descent, we were across from the lot at the park and ride again, to finish the hike. We dashed across and returned with no problem.

I got a ride back to Whiting with Jenny and we were on our way.

This had been a pretty interesting day, good because I knocked out some more stuff I wanted to do, but also because it really showcased some personal passage of time as well.

Because we did this entire bit again after 14 years, it led me to want to do the remainder of Barnegat Branch again, which would also be very different, and I'd plan that one to take place in the very near future.