![]() ![]() One of the kettle ponds in Nickerson State Park. The park maintains its own paved bikeway that winds through the woods and past several kettle ponds. If you’ve opted to stay on the rail trail, Nickerson State Park will be your next diversion-worthy destination. In Brewster, you can stick with the rail trail or you can head north on Route 137 (at the crossing next to Ferretti’s Market) and check out historic Route 6A and The Brewster Store, the iconic general store. The bog on the Harwich/Brewster line as seen from the Cape Cod Rail Trail on a fall day. If you’re looking for an Instagram photo op, this is the place. After you go over Route 6 on the bike bridge, there will be another cranberry bog on your right and a lake on your left. Within a mile, the trailhead for the Hacker Wildlife Sanctuary will be on your right it offers a beautiful walk or a challenging trail for mountain biking enthusiasts. Within seconds, you will pass a working cranberry bog on your left. View of a cranberry bog from the Cape Cod Rail Trail. Take the first right on the rotary and head toward Brewster. Within a few minutes you will come to a rotary. If you’re getting on the trail from Winstead Inn, head west (left). If you didn’t bring your own bike, Dennis Cycle Center, just three miles from Winstead Inn, offers rentals. With walking trails winding through the woods just off of the rail trail in Harwich Center, the bikeway is certainly worthy of exploring on foot, but a bicycle will let you take in far more territory in just a couple of hours. If you get on the Cape Cod Rail Trail at Dennis Cycle Center, you’ll be treated to yet another beautiful view of a cranberry bog. It is accessible in Harwich Center, about 100 yards from the Winstead Inn and just a short drive from the Beach Resort. The Cape Cod Rail Trail is 25.5 miles of paved bikeway, much of which was constructed on the Old Colony Railroad bed, making it blessedly free of hills. But it is the original Cape Cod Rail Trail that offers the greatest variety of scenic landscapes and local businesses to discover from the trail itself. The aptly named “Chatham Spur” was added several years ago and ends in Chatham, a lovely village. The Cape Cod Rail Trail in Harwich.Īnd yet, if we had to choose – which we kind of do for this story – we would opt for the oldest portion. Far shorter in length and with fewer diversions to explore, Cape Cod’s second-oldest bike route (Falmouth’s Shining Sea Bikeway is a skosh older) has changed dramatically since it was established, and very much for the better, with new “spurs” added to the existing route. Side note: There are other places where you can park, i.e., at trail heads throughout the area, but if this your first time in the park, we highly recommend you go to the visitor center first.When the Cape Cod Rail Trail originally opened, it was a mere shadow of its current self. We were there in time to watch a 15-minute clip about the Cape’s natural history and its possible future. There’s a small museum showing the history of the Cape, a gift store where I bought two water bottles, and even a theater, which shows various short films throughout the day. The Salt Pond Visitor Center in Eastham is great place to kick off your National Seashore adventure. You only need to pay if you are parking at a beach. If you’re staying closer to Provincetown, you may want to check out the Province Lands Visitor Center first. Because we were on a day trip and we live off-Cape, we first stopped at the Eastham visitor center. First things first: Getting to the Cape Cod National Seashoreīecause the park is so vast, there are two visitor centers: one in Eastham (50 Nauset Rd., Eastham, MA), and one in Provincetown (171 Race Point Rd., Provincetown, MA). Our suggestions will help you plan your trip to the Cape Cod National Seashore if you only have one day. While you can break up these activities into a few days, we decided to go all out and do all of them in one day. Swimming (we went to the beach but didn’t swim more on why later).We decided to break down our activities into four categories: During our day here, we really had to narrow down what exactly we wanted to do and see. ![]() With over 40,000 acres of protected area, there’s plenty to do at the Cape Cod National Seashore. ![]()
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