Full of enthusiasm for our new goal, walking the Perkiomen Trail (twice), my husband and I returned there on this date. It was another gorgeous June day, and we got an early start, just after 7 AM. We started off at Graterford and headed north.
This section of the trail involves crossing the Perkiomen Creek several times. The trail also closely parallels Route 29. Often we were between the road and the creek. And as you know, the trail follows the rail bed of the former Perkiomen Branch rail line.
All right. Right off the bat we crossed a railroad bridge over the creek.
Look at this beautiful peaceful upstream view. The red building is a house hanging out over the creek. What a fantastic location.
This is the end of the Skippack Trail that we took a couple of weeks ago.
You may remember this view of the bridge from on this trail – as I said, a couple of weeks ago it was. Here’s what it looks like from below, standing on that trail.
I left a tiny animal figure at the end of the bridge.
The bridge area had several messages painted on the trail, the bridge abutments, and the bridge itself. It was moving and sobering to see them.
We continued on through the flood plain. I love the look of the ranks of small trees arrayed off into the distance.
There is a lot of milkweed to be seen. This plant is a good one for butterflies, Monarchs in particular, and I am always glad to see it.
We set another small animal on a bench in Rahns, near the closed parking lot near this small house, a very typical example of the cottages in this area.
We kept going. We crossed another bridge over the creek, this one taking us back up toward Route 29. We left a third, and our last, small animal at this location.
We continued walking, passing Central Perkiomen Park, which is still closed, but when open is a great spot to start a walk, with a good parking lot, bathrooms, picnic tables, etc. At Plank Road we crossed, not before taking a look across Route 29 at a local landmark, Ott’s Exotic Plants.
It’s a large establishment with huge greenhouses, this structure you see in the photo, plus other buildings, and on the other side of the property they do seasonal layouts of massed floral plantings that will knock your socks off. I have never been inside. I made a note – I will be back here and finally take a look at a place I have been admiring from the outside for 35 years.
After crossing Plank Road, we began to near Schwenksville. There are many houses along here crammed up to Route 29 and squeezed in by the trail, but the attraction is the creek just below the trail on the other side. In some cases, because the ground slopes so steeply away from the road, the second floor windows are at the level of the windows in the cars passing on the road. I wonder how it would be to be sleeping in one of those bedrooms…
I took a photo of the white house and then, standing in the same place, pivoted to the creek. You can see how close it all is.
The blue house, well, I was really taken by its look, and by the orange chair against the blue wall, with the soccer ball comfortably settled underneath.
You do get a glimpse of the personal lives going on here in these homes, don’t you, from the trail. Makes things interesting.
We crossed Route 73 (FYI, if you went back east on 73, in about 45 minutes you would pass our street. So it’s an easy trip out here for us – get on 73 West and voila! end up at this very place I am about to show you, the intersection of Route 29 and 73, and the border of Schwenksville.
Well, we let Rtes. 29 and 73 go along their way and we continued on the trail. It runs behind buildings that front on Main Street aka 29/73. I like the slate shingles on this house. It is something you occasionally see in this area. Also, notice the canoe stored under the deck.
We passed the former train station, now a restaurant.
Schwenksville is a tiny place but has a lot of history, one aspect of it being its popularity as a summer home location for some wealthy people. On our return trip, we walked along Main Street. I will save those pictures for another post. Instead, I’ll tell you that though Schwenksville was our intended turnaround point, we decided to go to the next trailhead, Cedar Road, only one mile ahead.
We crossed back over the Perkiomen. I did like this bridge and its squared off structure.
We came to the Cedar Road location, finding it to be in what I think is a former farm field now filling with native and local plants, including more milkweed.
As you can see, the trail is now gravel again. We decided to turn around here and start at this place on our next walk, since with our extra mileage, our entire walk clocks out at 8.5 miles. Well, I think that is a new record for the two of us walking together.
I’ve added today’s travels to the map – they are the black line.
The beautiful weather and the interesting scenery made it a great day for us. Thanks for coming along.
Sometimes You Get So Confused 
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