Hiking in South Jersey

Hiking on the beach?

There’s much more to do than just lay out and get a tan.

My boyfriend lives on Long Beach Island and it’s been quite a boring winter with all of the snow and not much to do outdoors.  Now that the weather has finally warmed up we have decided to explore the surrounding areas.  A few days ago we came across the Manasquan Reservoir Perimeter in Monmouth County New Jersey.  The trail itself has many entryways and we decided to begin by walking through the environmental center.  In the center there is a video from the Eagle Came where you can watch of a birds nest being built by a bald eagle.  I wish I had known to bring binoculars because at the environmental center there is a short trail around the building where they would have come in handy.

Wetlands and shore lines

 MTV's Jersey Shore doesn't do this place justice.

Once we left the environmental center we had a choice to go left and stay on the trail or go right and take a short detour around a small wetlands area.  We decided to go rights and we were very happy we did.  The wetlands area is full of beautiful plant life and wildflowers.  Since we went in early spring we were able to see a lot of the flowers in full bloom.  The detour took up about a mile out of the way and rejoined the main hiking trail a quarter of the mile from where we started. 

 

April showers bring lots of May flowers.

All those heavy rainstorms were defiantly worth it.

The trail itself is about a five-mile long loop (not including the brief detour around the wetlands).  The trail is marked well with mile marker posts, although the numbers go backwards if you begin at the environmental center like we did.  The trail itself is mostly on a wide gravel or dirt path.  Dogs are allowed on this trail although they need to be kept on a leash.  Due to the heavy rainstorms over the past few weeks the flowers were in full bloom and we were able to see lots of frogs and turtles in the various pools alongside the trail.  We were told to keep our eyes open for eagles’ nests but we weren’t able to find any.  Eaglets are hatched around mid February and care for their young through September so we decided we will defiantly be making another trip to this trail around that time and we will definitely remember the binoculars.