To the Northern End

Northern Terminus, Delaware and Raritan Canal

(props to Luis for scaring the gulls into flight for me)

1 March 2020

I told them I didn't know what was up there. I knew we'd have to cross a few nasty intersections. Past Landing Lane, though, all I had was my GPS to guide me.

Too cold for the road again, Jim ceded Sunday to me. I decided to lead a towpath ride from the Amwell Road parking lot and go north, all the way into New Brunswick this time, all the way to where the canal meets the river.

It was a no registrants-no ride ride. Five people registered and six showed up: Ricky, Chris, Bob, Jim, Luis, Dave, and John W.

We weren't much past the start when Luis nearly ran himself off the path. He was looking to the right, across the canal.  "Bald eagle!" he said.

We all stopped. It took me a while to dig out my camera, what with my thick gloves and new jacket. The eagle didn't budge. It didn't budge the entire time our group was stopped there, and our group wasn't being quiet. I was even able to dismount and walk back for a better angle and zoom shots.

Smart bird. It knew we weren't after its fish.

Turns out Luis is fond of eagles and tracks their nests and activities around here. He knew there was a pair in the vicinity and had been keeping an eye out.

We stopped to look at where the Millstone River met the Raritan. The path then followed the Raritan in a long, northeastern arc, bending south after Bound Brook.

Landing Lane at George Street is an ugly intersection. Two of our crew made an illegal left while the rest of us bunched up at a crosswalk. We rode on the narrow street for a few hundred yards, then hopped onto a park path that led to a flight of concrete stairs back down to George Street. On the other side was a bridge over Route 18. I remembered taking the pedestrian path over the bridge once with Winter Larry and Snakehead. It hadn't been in good shape back then. Today, though, we went under the bridge, along a path that was barely a path at all. 

We found ourselves having to cross Route 18. There was a crosswalk at least, and a decent sight line. Now the river was on our left, behind a chain-link fence. On our right was a long cement wall, Route 18 on the other side.

What made the narrow path interesting was that the entire wall was covered with colorful graffiti. I'm talking art-grade graffiti, and not an inch of the wall was bare. If you look on a map, you will see "New Brunswick Graffiti Gallery" where the path approaches the Albany Street bridge.

Then we were at the edge of a park, bumbling along something in between dirt and grass. We crossed a little bridge, rode on a groomed path, and followed another little bridge right back over to the river again. Beyond a third bridge, whose approach was washed away, and which we had to pick our way around, lay a long stretch covered with gulls.

"This would be a good picture," Luis said. I started to dig out my camera again. "It would be better if the birds were flying," he said. "I'll go scare 'em."  He rode forward, by which point my camera was ready.

We rode to the end, then doubled back, because it looked as if we could get farther out if we went into the park on the other side. We crossed the bridge with the washed-out base and poked eastward.

We could see the very end of the canal, where boats would have entered and exited, blocked off now.

We reached the end and turned around. "Wow!" Bob said. "From here, New Brunswick looks like a city!"

"It is a city," I said.

"I know. I mean, it looks like one." He's got a point. Where else can one see the whole of New Brunswick like this?

"This has definitely tipped over into adventure ride territory," he said.

On our way back down the graffiti path, I stopped to take a picture of a tree decorated with plastic bottles.

And of a drain iced over.

Chris and Luis were making rumblings about not crossing Route 18 again. There was a pedestrian overpass we could try. It would require carrying our bikes up a few flights of stairs. Jim was hesitant. I was all for it.

Chris led the way, with me behind him. We got all the way to the top only to find that the gate was locked.

"Turn around!" I called down.

Jim had a look on his face that told me he'd have some things to say about this in his blog. "I've had dreams like this," I told them, "where I have to ride my bike up steps to try to keep up with you guys." And for a minute or two I wasn't sure I was awake.

We crossed the two roads again, turned on Landing Lane as best we could without pissing drivers off, and got back to the peaceful part of the towpath.

We were near Bound Brook when Luis stopped again. I'd seen the large bird land in the tree. "Juvenile eagle," he said. I couldn't get a good angle; the kid was hiding its face behind a branch. It took off before I could get into a good position.

We got spread out after that, bunching up again at the Millstone-Raritan confluence, where I snarfed down half an energy bar and gave Jim the other half; he'd gone light on breakfast, which was half the reason he'd seemed so grumpy back there (the other half being the weight of the Krakow Monster squashing his back on the stairs).

And before we knew it, we were back in Franklin Township.

All right then. I now really have been on all of the Delaware and Raritan Canal towpath, from the entrance in New Brunswick, to the city of Trenton, down to the exit in Bristol, PA, and along the Delaware River all the way to Frenchtown. There's still the stretch down in Bordentown, along the Abbott Marsh, but I'm not sure it actually connects to the rest of the towpath. Chris was going on about it today. I'm sure he'll lecture me again at some point and we'll have to get a crew together to check it out.