Cape May Point

    We had a nice leisurely day on our hands, so we decided to go to the beach. Something I’ve noticed about New Jersey:  if you want to go to a nice beach, you have to get something called a “Beach Tag”. What this means is that you pay a fee to get on the beach (kind of like a toll road). You can pay for a day, a week, or a season. And near as I can tell, a tag at one beach is NOT transferrable to another beach! Now we travelled a large portion of the Gulf Shores and never paid to get on a beach?!? Multitudes of toll roads and now pay for the beach? What’s next??? Charge for air to breathe?!? Anyway, I digress...

    Just a pleasant hour drive south of us is a little community called Cape May. This is about as far south in New Jersey that you can go. On one side of you is the Atlantic Ocean, on the other is Delaware Bay. It is a quaint little beach town with lots of shops and restaurants. In fact, Cape May was listed as one of America’s top 10 beaches on the Travel Channel. Cape May and nearby Cape May Point are renowned bird watching areas. Every fall, around 400 species of birds (and the Monarch butterflies) pass through this area in their migration southwards. 

    We drove through the town of Cape May and motored to Cape May Point. Here we “snuck” on to the beach to get a look. 

    As you can see, it wasn’t very crowded this day. The access point we came on to the beach didn’t say that beach tags were needed, so we just strolled right on. Later we found out that we were supposed to have a tag.  :-(

    Some of the “locals” hanging out at the beach. 

    On the west side is Cape May Point State Park. Near as we can tell, this is the only free access to the beaches in New Jersey! Here there are four different hiking trails all designed to facilitate the bird watchers. The trails vary in length from half a mile to four miles and they meander in and around the sand dunes and coastal shore. Here you can also find the Cape May Lighthouse (pictured at the top of this blog). Tours are given (for a fee of course) but we didn’t bother with that this time. Also on the beach can be found the remains of a WW II coastal gun emplacement. This was manned during the war and has since fallen into disrepair. There is a museum on site that chronicles the history of Cape May from the 1800’s to present and also has a nice display of the terrestrial and marine life that can be found in the area. 

    The gun emplacement on the beach.

    Just some of the birds that were hanging around on the day we were there. 

    The State Park is a nifty area. You have access to the beach, they have built several viewing platforms in which you can sit and watch the birds. There are picnic grounds where you can have a nice mid day meal. We will be back several times this summer and plan to make a day of it. 

    All around Cape May, there are homes with lavish gardens in full bloom. This is just one of them.  We have found this to be the case almost everywhere here, thus explaining New Jersey’s claim to fame--the Garden State.

    This is Lily Lake in Cape May Point. It is said that the pirate, Captain Kidd, would come ashore and replenish his fresh water supply from this lake. 

    All in all, we had a nice relaxing day and look forward to coming here again.