Hiking stats at a glance:

Total Mileage = ~1.3 miles

Hike Highlights = Obscured view of the ocean and WWII history

I usually spend more time in local parks than anywhere else but I don’t often write about them here on the blog. Although many of them are really quite nice and certainly worth a visit if you happen to be in the area. So, I have decided to make more of an effort to highlight these parks I visit and maybe point out some places people may have never been before. On this particular day we decided to stop by the Hartshorne Woods Park in Middletown, New Jersey which is part of the Monmouth County Parks System. It isn’t a huge park by any means but it does sit on a commanding cliff overlooking the ocean and is home to old WWII batteries (gun installations) that were manned during the war to protect our coastline. It is easy to forget sometimes that this type of thing was going on so close to us here. We decided to do a quick walk around Battery Loop before heading down into town for dinner. It was a nice little walk along a paved trail through pretty dense woods. There are some nicer view points along the way on spur trails but we only kept to the main trail. Maps of the park are available at the kiosk in the parking lot so its easy to figure out where your going and what to do. There are several trails available from paved paths to primitive trails so there are plenty of options depending on what you are looking for. Below are just a bunch of pictures in order from our walk.

View of the old battery.

View of the path in the park.

The best obstructed view we got along the walk.

Some wildlife in the park.

After we finished our walk and headed back into town for dinner we were even lucky enough to take in the sites and sounds of the Highlands Annual Clam Festival which we had no idea was even going on. It turned out to be a great before dinner walk and I plan to come back to this park to explore some of the longer trails on the other side of the park. Have any other favorite parks in NJ? Let me know in the comments and I would love to go and check it out and do a blog post about it.