Exploring Ellisville Harbor State Park

Ellisville Harbor State Park is a relatively unknown state park that boasts a mile-long walking trail that leads to a secluded beach. This post about our adventure includes parking information along with pictures of the trail and beach. We also include a video of our walking on some rock outcroppings, which was Benny’s Big Idea.

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As I was staring out the window on a pleasantly cool summer’s day, I realized that I hadn’t yet made my annual pilgrimage the typical New England hotspot: I hadn’t yet been to the beach.

Yes, I know that Benny and I traveled to Hidden Lawrence Island in Bourne, and, as it’s an island, there is a beach there. And yes, we did venture to The New Bedford Harbor Walk and Palmer Island, and by virtue of Palmer Island being, well, an island, we went to and saw a beach.

But we hadn’t yet set out with the goal of going directly to a beach. As in, “Hey, let’s go to the beach today!” And Benny, being the fashion-bearista that he is, wanted to sport his island/beach shirt one more time before the end of the summer.

Benny was eager to start off on a beach adventure, but I told him we couldn’t just go to any beach. We needed to find someplace special. Someplace where we could relax. Someplace that we could hear the waves. Someplace, in other words, that wasn’t crowded at all.

As we looked at a map, we saw a nice green spot right near the ocean: Ellisville Harbor State Park. Benny donned his beach shirt, and I packed the sunscreen. We hopped into the car and we were on our way.

Parking

At first, we were a little confused about the parking situation. There’s a huge dirt area right off of the road, and I wanted to park there. Benny was very insistent that the parking lot was down a dirt road. Not knowing where exactly where to go, I decided to park in the huge dirt parking lot. Benny huffed, but didn’t fuss all that much.

“We’ll just walk down that dirt road anyway,” he suggested.

“Benny, there’s a path right here, near the car. I don’t think that road is for us,” I replied.

“Bob, there’s a sign there! It says “Parking from sunrise to sunset!”

“I don’t know, Benny, let’s just go down this path. I think that’s a private road.”

Because this is the “Parking” section of our post, I hope you don’t mind a bit of a spoiler alert. At the end of the adventure, I discovered that Benny WAS right. That other dirt road did, in fact, lead to a parking lot. Did he gloat? Of course he did, and I suppose he had every right to.

However, I’m still glad we parked where we did. The road to the other parking lot is very narrow, and it’s not wide enough for two cars to fit side by side.

Hiking to the Beach

If you thought that the beach would be right next to the parking lot, well, you have a thing or two to learn about Ellisville Harbor State Park. In order to get to this beach, you’ll need to put on your hiking shoes, or, if you’re Benny, get comfortable in a nice backpack while someone else carries you. Either way, get ready to walk a mile to the beach.

Because we didn’t go to the right parking lot, we didn’t see the main path. We started our adventure by going down the path I had pointed out to Benny. This narrow trail made us feel as if we were in the middle of nowhere, which was exactly what we were looking for.

The trail we were on intersected with what Benny dubbed as, “The Path of Correctness,” insinuating that the other path was wrong because we didn’t start our journey at the right parking lot.

I told him that there’s nothing wrong with taking the path less traveled.

The Beach

When we arrived at the beach, we, to our dismay, heard people! “Oh no!” I thought. I didn’t want this to be just another beach experience.

But, there weren’t many people there at all. The beach was pretty much deserted. Most hikers who made the trek there just sat down at the end of the trail, right at the trail head.

We only had to walk about 100 feet or so before we were by ourselves. At first, the sand made it difficult to walk, but the soft soil soon changes to being harder and more rock-based.

Benny started to look for the perfect skipping rocks. There were so many to be had!

The beach was so peaceful and beautiful that words won’t do it justice. So, we wanted to share with you a few of our photos.

Benny’s Big Idea

We sauntered to the end of the beach, and Benny saw some rocks. I was content with admiring said rocks, but Benny thought that it would make our trip to Ellisville Harbor State Park complete if we were to climb them and get as far out as we could.

As you can see, these rocks were slippery. And going on these rocks wasn’t the best idea at all.

Frequent readers of the blog know that I’m usually the voice of reason. Usually, I keep Benny in line. Usually, I’m the one who rains on his fun yet potentially dangerous parades. Usually.

Can you guess what we did?

We went where no Bob and Benny should have gone. We went on the rocks.

It was slippery. It was a bit treacherous. It went against my better judgment. But we didn’t waver.

I was determined to not have to step in those ocean mystery puddles.

After I took the above video and picture, we headed back. Of course, Benny was in my backpack and didn’t get to have the full “I might almost slip on unforgiving rocks” experience. I, however, was able to take full advantage of this adventure. Stepping precariously on a wet rock, my bare foot lost traction, and I almost went tumbling into one of those ocean mystery puddles. At the last moment, I reach out and was able to catch myself.

“Bob, is everything okay?”

“Yes, Benny. We almost fell into the ocean, and you almost became shark bait, but yes, everything’s okay.” A little exaggeration never hurt anyone.

When we made it back to safe ground, we turned around and admired the view of the beach at Ellisville Harbor State Park. Then, I put my sneakers back on, and we headed back to the car, concluding our adventure for the day.

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Check out our map of places we’ve been in New England!

For more information on Ellisville Harbor State Park, check out the state’s website.

Check out our map of places we’ve been in New England!