A birthday celebration jaunt leads us to the Pine Barrens and Batsto Village, then to the shore for a fantastic meal in Asbury Park and a night spent in a new boutique hotel in adjacent Ocean Grove.
Historic Allentown
Sometimes described as a portal to the Pine Barrens, Allentown built its wealth in the 18th century mainly through a grist mill that processed grain from the many surrounding farms. Its central location also served as a way station for travelers and commerce on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, across from Philadelphia. The town boasts over 225 historic structures. Today we start at the Allentown Library, originally a church built in 1879 and converted to a library in 1972. We then head across the street to Woody’s Towne Café, a luncheonette with lots of local atmosphere.
Allentown (Monmouth County) Public Library
Pine Barrens Scenic Drive
To reach Batsto Village in southern New Jersey, we drive southeast from Allentown and turn onto County Road 539 at Cream Ridge, following that to Manchester Township and then south on various two-lane roads until 542 West leads us to Batsto Village. The biggest surviving forest on the eastern seaboard, the Pine Barrens encompasses 1.1 million acres of protected wilderness with only scattered settlements throughout. The hour-and-fifteen-minute drive through this magnificent preserve is peaceful and strange, given how New Jerseyans are not used to driving lonely roads. Maybe six cars pass us going the other way while in the Preserve, mostly trucks departing a sand-and-gravel operation.
Happily, we see only one Confederate flag along the way and zero signs for you know who.
The cranberry business also works in this area. It’s off-season for the berries, so the bogs are empty, surrounded by dikes. We pull over to snap some pictures, vowing to return next September for a tour when the bogs are full.
Cranberry bog in off-season
Batsto Lake and Village
After reaching Batsto Village, and needing to stretch our legs after so much time in the car, we hike the adjacent Batsto Lake red-to-blue Loop (two miles) after viewing the Pine Barrens museum in the expansive visitor center. For those curious about how the Pine Barrens came to be, this museum is worth a visit.
The trail is a well-maintained sandy path, easy to walk. We enjoy the hike through pitch pines as the trail loops around to scenic Batsto Lake, the last third of the hike running alongside the lake back to the visitor center. There are several stops along the way, with benches and signs explaining the unique vegetation.
Batsto Village is a pleasant surprise, especially the Wharton Mansion (tours available). Joseph Wharton purchased the property, about 48,000 acres, in 1876. After extensive renovations of the century-old house, he used the place as his family’s living quarters during the shoulder seasons (winters were spent in Philadelphia and summers in Newport). Just a few years later, he established the Wharton School of Business with a $100,000 donation ($3 million in today’s dollars). Our cushy modern lives take multiple dwellings for granted, but it must have been the height of luxury for the Wharton family to travel between those three locations every year.
In the 1950s, the property encompassed more than122,000 acres and was deeded to the State of New Jersey, becoming the Wharton State Forest.
Asbury Park and Ocean Grove
Back in the car for the hour-long drive to seaside civilization, we head for peaceful Ocean Grove and Hotel Albatross, a new boutique hotel with very reasonable off-season mid-week rates. One block from the ocean, the hotel sits close to the Great Auditorium, a legendary structure built by Methodists as the anchor for their summertime camp meetings. The auditorium still functions for church services on weekends, while the surrounding (and famous) tent houses are vacant this time of year, with long waiting lists for those who want to occupy them during the summer.
This hotel is perfect for our needs, the ocean close by and Asbury Park’s restaurant scene a few minutes’ drive away. We choose to dine at Judy & Harry’s on a residential block inside the St. Laurent, another boutique hotel. You can reach the restaurant by a side door, but we’d been advised to enter through the front, where a dark, immaculately decorated bar (the Harry’s part) awaits us. It’s quiet inside Harry’s, and we enjoy a drink while the bartender informs the restaurant (Judy’s) that we’ve arrived, and after our drink we walk through the bar and enter a space the opposite of Harry’s, bright and spacious and buzzing with patrons.
The meal is delicious, the service impeccable, and we feel like we’ve discovered a place quite worthy of a Daytripper writeup.
The next morning’s walk on Ocean Grove’s breezy beach without boardwalk distractions tops off our stay.
