Riverfront Park/Floodgates Road – Greenwich Township, NJ

Riverfront Park/Floodgates Road – Greenwich Township, Gloucester County, NJ
Distance –  2 miles (total out-and-back)
Type – out-and-back
Difficulty: 1 of 10
Total score: 6 of 10

Website – None (*GASP*)
Open – Sunrise to Sunset.

Terrain – along the Delaware River and marshes
Surface – Flat, gravel road

Trailheads – 39°49’53.24″N,  75°19’54.37″W

Directions – From Route 44, turn onto Floodgate Road.  Drive all the way down, past the Bridgeport Speedway, until the road hits a T intersection.  Turn either way and park where you can.

Parking – You can either park along one of the end areas up on Floodgate Road, or can make a right and drive down to the parking area for Riverfront Park, then walk back up the road to Floodgate Road.

You can spot some of the cars parked down the end there.

Dog friendly? Yes
Stroller friendly? Yes
Benches? No
Facilities?: None
Markings – None, but stay on the road (close to traffic nearly all of its length) and you can’t possibly get lost.

Map –

Description – So last Sunday, the Pres and I opted for two hikes, and this was the second of two.  I couldn’t find much online about it, so it was our second “well, we’ll just wing it” hike for the day.

I’m glad we went!

The actual town park isn’t much, just a field with a picnic table.  But Floodgates Road can be walked in either direction.  We opted to start by walking south.  This brought us around a corner and past some old houses that had seen better days.

Did I mention nice views of the Commodore Barry Bridge?  Because there were nice views of the Commodore Barry Bridge.

Remains of some old houses.

Houses are not part of the public road, but the road itself is fine to walk down.  I wouldn’t even think about leaving the road to check out these houses, it has “bad idea” written all over it.  And is illegal, as its private property.

We went down to the end of the road, then turned back and walked back past our car and toward the flood gate that gives Flood Gate Road its name.  Pretty views of the Philadelphia skyline way in the distance.

Center City Philadelphia in the distance.

Flood gate in the not distance, which is our next stop.

The Pres and I stopped at the flood gate to check it out.  It divides Repaupo Creek from the Delaware River, and is pretty neat piece of engineering.  It also has a pretty view of the creek.

Then it was down the active part of the road to the gate that blocks off the part of the road that would be our trail for the rest of our hike.

The trail went for about 1/3 of a mile until it reached Aunt Deb’s Ditch, at which point the Delaware River began to disappear behind an island.

Beginning of Aunt Deb’s Ditch.

We continued on past marsh and meadow, around another gate, until we reached another bridge, about another 1/3 of a mile from where the ditch began.

Going around a gate.

There was another pretty view from the bridge.  We crossed, and the trail immediately and abruptly ended.  However, a small path led down to the ditch, so we went down to see what we could see.  Beware of the mud here, the tide was down, but it was quite slippery.

Bridge that we just crossed.

Further down the ditch.

Back toward the Delaware.

With no where left to go, we turned and headed back toward our car.

Nearby: Nearby is Greenwich Lake Park, which we had hiked before this one.  Write up coming soon!