Rancocas Nature Center - three miles of trail along the creek in Westampton

If you live around Mount Holly or Willingboro, you've crossed Rancocas Creek more times than you can count, usually on your way to a Wawa run or a kid's practice. I did that for years before I pulled off Rancocas Road one Sunday and actually walked down to the water. That's what the Rancocas Nature Center is for. It's a quiet stretch of meadow and woods in Westampton with a boardwalk down by the creek, and late October into November is the nicest time of year to walk it.

Here's how to do it right the first time.

What the Rancocas Nature Center is

The Rancocas Nature Center sits inside Rancocas State Park, on the Westampton side. The center says it has about three miles of hiking trails across a range of landscapes, with open meadow up top and woods running down to the wet ground by the creek. It has been running environmental programs here since 1977, and The Inquirer and the Burlington County Times both back up that year.

Sources don't agree on how big it is. The center's own pages say 210 acres in one place and "200+" in another, The Inquirer said 215 in 2013, and the Burlington County Times said 135 in 2012. Call it a couple hundred acres and you won't be wrong by much. It feels bigger once you're on the boardwalk.

One thing worth knowing before you go: the center says plainly that it's not an animal rescue, hospital or shelter. If you find a hurt animal on the way, call a wildlife rehabber instead of bringing it here.

Getting to the Rancocas Nature Center

The address is 794 Rancocas Road, Westampton. From I-295, take Exit 45A, the Mount Holly and Willingboro exit, and head east on Rancocas Road. The center's directions say the entrance is on the right about 1.8 miles from the highway.

There are two parking lots. The first one is on your right as soon as you pull in. The second is farther back, past the children's garden, the visitor center and the picnic tables. Park in the second lot if you can, because the information kiosk is just to its left and the big trail map board is right past it.

The rules and the hours

The trails at the Rancocas Nature Center are open seven days a week until dusk. Dogs and bikes aren't allowed on the trails, so this is a walk for people only. The center asks for a small suggested donation.

The visitor center is in the white house, with the entrance on the front. It has the restrooms, the trail maps, a small nature store, live animals and some natural history displays. It keeps short hours, noon to 4 on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, and it closes on major holidays. Plan your bathroom break around that.

The picnic tables are open to anybody until dusk. Carry out your trash, and leave the grill and the speaker at home, since the center asks for no grilling and no music.

Walking the trails

The boardwalk on the Blue trail is the part people remember. It carries you over the soft, wet ground near the creek, where the cattails and marsh grass go gold this time of year. Bring shoes you don't mind getting muddy, because a creekside trail in November holds water after rain, and wet leaves on a boardwalk get slick.

At the start of the eastern section of the Blue boardwalk, near the junction with the yellow-green trail just south of the big map, the center has marked off a 100-meter pace course. Walk it at your normal stride and count your paces (a pace is two steps), then divide 100 meters by that number. The center suggests doing it three times and averaging. It sounds like homework. Then you'll find yourself counting steps on every trail for a month.

The Rancocas Nature Center also has 20 permanent orienteering-style markers spread around the preserve, set up in 2023 as an Eagle Scout project. The center posts map and compass courses that run from about 300 meters up to about a mile. If you have a kid who's bored of "just walking," hand them a printed map and a compass and let them lead.

Near the visitor center you'll find a dragonfly pond, a frog pond, a Monarch Waystation and a sensory play area. Most of the butterflies have moved on by November, but the seed heads and the pond edges are still worth a slow lap.

The farm under the Rancocas Nature Center

The center's own history page is worth reading before you go, because it changes how the place looks. It says Rancocas Creek was a busy shipping route in the late 1700s and early 1800s, carrying goods from Mount Holly down to the Delaware River. The North Branch of the creek runs along the southern edge of the property.

In the mid-1800s, according to a history the center quotes from a writer named C.H. McIlvain, a farmer named Charles Longstreth Mather bought the land. Mather grew crops and sold wood from the forest. He dug muck out of the lowlands to spread on his upland fields, and he built a big lime kiln where thousands of bushels of oyster shells were burned down to lime for the soil. He also banked, dammed and drained the flooded meadows to turn them into pasture, and grazed cattle there for years. Treat the details as the center's telling, passed down from a former director.

So when you're out on the boardwalk over the wet ground, you're standing on meadow that a 19th century farmer spent years trying to drain. The creek is slowly winning that one back.

When the Rancocas Nature Center almost closed

In December 2012, New Jersey Audubon, which had leased the site from the state since 1977, announced it would close the center at the end of the year. The Burlington County Times covered the announcement, and The Inquirer reported the following summer that volunteers and local partners had kept it open. It's still open, which is the best ending a story like that can have.

A guided walk this week

If you'd rather have a naturalist with you, the Rancocas Nature Center lists an Interpretive Trail Hike on Sunday, Nov 1, from 1:30 to 2:30. It's for ages 5 and up, so bring a carrier for little ones. Members go free, non-members are asked for a donation, and you register online. Bad weather cancels it.

That's also the day the clocks fall back. The trails close at dusk, and dusk shows up about an hour earlier on the clock starting Sunday, so if you're used to an after-dinner walk, move it to lunch.

Pair it with

The Fall Fest and Pet Pawrade is in downtown Mount Holly on Saturday from 11 to 4, so you could walk the creek Sunday and see the costumed dogs the day before (it's in Hot picks). The Burlington County Farmers Market is at the Ag Center in Moorestown on Saturday morning too.

The short version

Take Exit 45A, go 1.8 miles east on Rancocas Road, park in the back lot, walk the Blue trail boardwalk and count your steps on the pace course. Leave the dog home. Get there before 4 if you need the restroom, and before dusk either way.