Blue Trail – Gibbsboro Greenway – Gibbsboro, NJ

Blue Trail (Eastwick Drive Bike Path & Old Egg Harbor Road Bike Path) – Gibbsboro Greenway – Gibbsboro, Camden County, NJ
Distance – 1.1 miles one way (about another 0.2 miles if you park where we did) – we did 3 miles total on our hike along this trail
Type – Out-and-back
Difficulty: 1 of 10

Website – Gibbsboro Greenway
Open – Sunrise to Sunset.

Terrain – Woods, meadows, and suburbs
Surface – Paved trail

Trailheads –  39°49’48.24″N,  74°57’20.17″W

Directions – Parking located at the cul-de-sac on Berlin Road, just below its intersection with Eastwick Dr and a few feet off of Route 561.

Parking – Limited parking in the cul-de-sac.

Dog friendly? “Dogs must be tightly leashed. Under no circumstances can dogs run freely on the bikeways or within any public lands. You must clean up after your dog. ”
Stroller friendly? Very
Benches? Yes

Facilities?: None at this time

Markings – Mile marker posts
Map –

Description:

On a fine, warm summer day, The Pres, Tree Rider, Kite Flyer, and I set out to explore the last of the four trails on the Gibbsboro Greenway – the Blue Trail that incorporates the Eastwick Ave Bike Trail and the Old Egg Harbor Road Bike Trail.  To make life easy, Kite Flyer decided to ride in the stroller for this one, a nice break from carrying him all over South Jersey this summer.

We started by parking at the cul-de-sac on Berlin Road, a parking area mostly used to access the very popular Blueberry Hill Trails.  But this time, we headed the opposite way.  We walked down Berlin Road to Eastwick Road, turned right and crossed Route 561 at the light, then picked up the trail catty-corner from where we’d started crossing Route 561.

Opposite way of the Blueberry Hill Trail this time. We crossed Route 561, then crossed Eastwick Ave.

Cross catty-corner from where we are looking from now.

The trail leaves the road and winds through some forest behind homes.  After a short distance, the trail officially starts along Eastwick Road.

After the trail officially started, it wound some more through the forest behind houses until reaching a meadow.

Markers along the way keep trail of how far you’ve gone.

The trail follows the meadow for a while, which was lined by berry bushes.  Luckily, the kids didn’t notice this, or we never would have gotten anywhere.  They noticed on the way back and went to town.  The trail continues until you run out of trail along a road.

Once you hit the road though, you’re not done!  Cross the street and turn left, then continue on to the intersection.  There, you’ll see signs for the Old Egg Harbor Road section of the trail.  You can turn right to Haines Point (which is supposed to have a view of Philadelphia) or turn left to follow the route of an old Native American trail (now paved for bikes).  We opted left.

Up the road.

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Crossing with the other part of the trail.

We went left.

The next stretch will see you cross a road, then follow the edge of cul-de-sac in fairly quick order.

Blueberries!

The trail is straight ahead across the cul-de-sac.

The trail now heads along before crossing Kresson-Gibbsboro Road, then United States Avenue East.  In between these crossings is a ridiculous mansion with multiple buildings.  On the map, there is a spot labeled as “The Castle”.  If this isn’t it, then it should be.

Kresson-Gibbsboro Road.

By this point, the trail is nearing its end.  You’ll reach Alton Ave, the end of the trail and the end of Gibbsboro.  Still, cross over into Voorhees, as there is a nice view of what is labeled in the guide as Sunshine Lake (which would be odd to me, as there is a Sunshine Lake just a mile away along Cooper Road that was an old swimming lake.  You can check out pictures of the place from the 1930s that were taken by my grandmother.)

Crossing Alton Ave.

We were a bit tired by this point (1 1/2 miles into our day), so the boys sat down and had a snack of goldfish while looking at the lake.

We then headed back the way we came.  We started toward Haines Point, but didn’t make it very far before going back to back to the way we came.  When we hit the meadow, the boys browsed and ate berries for a while while Kite Flyer napped.

But we soon arrived back at our car after 3 miles of hiking.  Good hike!

Nearby:
This is part of the Gibbsboro Greenway System, a series of connected trails across Gibbsboro that can be strung together for longer hikes.  Sharing a parking lot with this hike is the Red Trail, better know as part of the trails at Blueberry Hill, the most popular trail (in terms of views) on this absurd site.  The other trails that are part of this system as the United States Ave trail (or Green Trail) and the Silver Lake (or Paintworks Lake) Trail.