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Great Island Review

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Great Island

Address: Off Chequessett Neck Rd., west of Downtown Wellfleet, Wellfleet, MA | Map It

Category: Parks
Location: Wellfleet

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Fodor's Review:

Chequessett Neck Road makes for a pretty 2½-mi drive from the harbor to the bay past Sunset Hill—a great place to catch one. At the end, on the left, is a parking lot and wooded picnic area from which nature trails lead off to Great Island, perfect for beachcombers and solitude seekers. The "island" is actually a peninsula connected by a sand spit built by tidal action. More than 7 mi of trails wind along the inner marshes and the water—these are the most difficult paths on the seashore because they're mostly in soft sand. In the 17th century, a tavern and shore whaling lookout towers stood here; residents pastured animals and engaged in oystering and cranberry harvesting. By 1800 the hardwood forest that had covered the island had been cut down for use in the building of ships and homes. The pitch pines and other growth you see here (and all over the Cape) today were introduced in the 1830s to keep the soil from washing into the sea. Cape Cod National Seashore offers occasional guided hikes on Great Island and, from February through April, seal walks. To the right of the Great Island lot, a road leads to Griffin Island, which has its own walking trail.

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