2005 Biking Cape Cod and Nantucket Island with Elderhostel

This Elderhostel program was hosted by International Bike Tours and featured three nights based in Brewster, Massachusetts, where we biked the Cape Cod Rail Trail (seen below) as well as side roads, followed by three nights on Nantucket Island where we biked to all points of the island. Our leader, Bob, included stops at windmills, lighthouses, cranberry bogs, Cape Cod National Seashore, museums, towns, and numerous other locales, providing fascinating information about each. We biked about 130 miles over mostly flat terrain during this six day program.

We took the ferry from Hyannis to Nantucket Island, and our bikes took up a bunch of room on the lower deck as seen below.

On Nantucket we biked to both ends of the island, Madaket and Siasconset, and many points between, covering all the bike trails and also through residential areas, giving us a flavor of life on the island. A guided walking tour of the historic town of Nantucket and a visit to its Whaling Museum were other highlights of the program.

Nantucket Island has 45% of its land in conservation tracts, a feat accomplished through land donations by residents and also financed by a property exchange tax which provides funds for the purchase of prime parcels, and this ensures that much of the biking is through lovely scenery as seen below. Massachusetts has a law that vehicles must stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, and we found that motorists also were courteous to bikers, both while we biked on the roads and while we crossed roadways.

We also saw the "crooked house" made famous on the "Mister Roger's" children's show.

Here's the group at the Eastham Windmill, the oldest on Cape Cod, built in 1680 in Plymouth and moved to Eastham in 1793.

Front row (kneeling l to r): Laurel, Lynn, Nancy, Lois, Phyll, and Richard

Standing (l to r): Charles, Janet, Sally, Jo, Pat, Marcia, Curt, Sue, Ross, Maureen, Sheila, Carol, Pat, Joan, JoAnn, Chuck, Dick, and Dave