On the Other Side of the Bay: Touring Lewes by Bicycle

LEWES, Del. — I must admit even though I have either lived or summered in Cape May County for more than 30 years, I had never visited the city on the other side of the bay, Lewes, Del. other than to drive past it on my way to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel.
When I discovered I could cross the bay on the Cape May-Lewes Ferry as a foot passenger and rent a bicycle at the Lewes ferry terminal, I decided it was time to have a look at Lewes and surrounding areas on two wheels.
A walk on, round trip foot passenger ticket on the ferry cost $18 which was a lot cheaper than bringing my car along and like Cape May, Lewes does not have a glut of parking spaces. On the sidewalk directly outside the Lewes ferry terminal is a tent covering racks of bikes from Lewes Cycle Sports. The bike racks are unmanned. You pick your bike, mostly beach cruisers although multi-speed bikes can be reserved, and dial a phone number and give them your credit card number. The cycle sports folks give you the combination to the lock on the bike and off you go.
I picked a beach cruiser and wearing a backpack with my camera, notepad, water bottle and cookies, I made a left from the ferry terminal onto Cape Henlopen Drive and pedaled past a number of condominium developments headed for Cape Henlopen State Park. If you arrive by car, there is a $4 admission fee but it is free if you ride in on a bike.
It was a hot day and my intention was to bike on a former railroad bed turned into a bike path to Rehoboth Beach, so I made a quick ride through of the state park. Something Delaware shares with Sunset Beach are World War II lookout towers in the park.
Lewes Cycle Sports owner Merrill Lynch, (yes that’s his real name) explained the use of a number of former small bunkers located around Cape Henlopen Park. He said in World War II, the federal government built an army base there as a secure location to relocate government operations including the president had Washington D.C. come under attack.
The park has a three-mile bike loop and the Gordon Ponds Trail noted as great bird watching spot. You can swim in the ocean, camp and fish on a pier at the park. I made a quick loop and returned to Cape Henlopen Drive and rode past the ferry terminal and made a left onto Freeman Douglas (Route 9).
My goal of the day trip was to use the Junction-Breakwater Trail, which runs six miles from Gills Neck Road and Freeman Highway to Rehoboth Beach. The trail is located on a former Pennsylvania Railroad line that began in 1857 and carried passengers to Rehoboth Beach along with fruit and produce of Sussex County.
As I normally do, I did things the hard way and chose the most difficult path to the trail taking the Freeman Douglass Highway. It has a wide bike lane but required crossing a couple of busy intersections. I later realized I should have pedaled into downtown Lewes first and proceeded from the Savannah Road Drawbridge along the canal using Pilottown Road (267) which also runs into Gills Net Road and takes you past upscale housing developments and a horse farm with little traffic.
In any case, to reach the trail, I made a left off Freeman Douglass Highway at Cape Henlopen High School. The Junction-Breakwater Trail begins with farms and housing developments including a concrete section right through the middle of a very upscale community. The trail is finely crushed gravel which I thought would require cruiser style tires but I would have been better off with a multi-speed bike since I rode at least 14 miles by the end of the day.
The trail is mostly shaded by a canopy of trees and has two trestles along the way built when trains ran down the line. A sign along the trail has photos of a steam locomotive pulling coaches of vacationers down the line to Rehoboth. There are some nice views of wetlands and woods along the way.
After about 4.5 miles with only about a half mile of trail left to Rehoboth Beach, I decided to stop at Tangier Outlets in Rehoboth for lunch at a TGI Fridays, right off the trail. I didn’t buy anything at the outlet shops because I had limited room in my backpack.
At just past noon, I decided to reverse course and head for Lewes. Because I like old trains, I whistled like a steam engine when I crossed the low trestles over Wolfe Glade and Holland Glade. Nobody heard me as other than some hawks and crows.
Using the back way into Lewes at the end of Gills Net Road, I enjoyed the breeze along the canal and I entered Lewes and put the bike in rack. No meter to feed.
A tour guide at the U.S. Lifesaving Station, the first one in the country, told me Lewes has older homes than Cape May because it did not experience a major fire like the one in Cape May in 1878 that destroyed 30 blocks. There are beautiful Colonial era homes in Lewes along with a lightship, a museum of its Dutch heritage and a house with a cannonball lodged in it, shot from a British cannon.
There is also a 256-foot tall wind turbine that provides all the power for the University of Delaware Marine Studies Campus to see if you take Pilottown Road. It makes no noise as it spins.
I thoroughly enjoyed Lewes and probably just scratched the surface on seeing its sights. The Junction-Breakwater Trail is for experienced cyclists, probably not for children. A bike ride into Cape Henlopen Park is about a mile from the ferry terminal and a ride to downtown Lewes is about a mile and a half, according to Lynch, easy for all riders.
You can reserve a foot passenger ticket on the ferry by calling 1-800-643-3779 although I’m told each ferry holds 800 passengers, so it is unlikely they will not find room for you.
To reserve a bike, call: 1-888-800-BIKE or 302-645-4544. A four-hour rental costs $16.
If you want to try to see everything in one day and ride for miles, get a bike with gears. By the end of the day, my legs felt like cooked spaghetti after riding a single speed bike such a distance.