Hiking at Napatree Point

Plus, a visit to a cute new-ish cafe in downtown Westerly

Coming back from Wales was tough. John and I got food poisoning the night we got back, and it’s hard to beat the stunning cliff faces and charming villages of South Wales.

Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, home of gorgeous craggy cliffs and stunning scenery.

But as we settled back into Rhode Island, and as Rhode Island settled into fall, I started to probe a little further than my usual 10-mile, Providence-centric radius. The coast (particularly the coast in this brooding early autumn) was calling.

Take a Hike at Napatree Point

This southwestern tip of Westerly spits out from a parking lot, an unlikely starting point for a scenic, quiet hike. But if you walk down the lot towards a narrow scruff of sandy land, you’ll find resplendent eelgrass and a few trails that take you from land to sea. The hike is a little over three miles and starts on a calm beach overlooking Block Island sound, with the Watch Hill lighthouse to the east. Sailboats and fishing trawlers trundle by, while oystercatchers, piping plovers, and sandpipers tapdance across the sand.

Walk down towards the point, and you’ll eventually hit a rocky expanse pebbled with tiny shells, big boulders, and cormorants airing out their soggy wings. Oh, before I go further, I should mention if you’re planning to do the whole walk around the point and back, wear pants you can roll up to your knees since there’s a small inlet on the northern side that might require fording. Unlucky for me, I was wearing jeans and emerged with soggy pant legs and sandy hiking boots. Ah, nature! Once you get through the inlet, you’re almost back at the start and you can either cut through the eelgrass or stick to the coastal path.

A Cafe to Grab a Bite

I’ll admit, when I showed up at Napatree, I wasn’t actually planning on hiking around the entire point. I strolled, then figured, how long could it be? Two soggy pant legs and a pair of sandy hiking shoes later, I realized it was longer than I thought. And when I reached the parking lot at 12:30, well, let’s just say I was ravenous. The good news is, while the touristy area around the point was shuttered for the off-season, a quick drive to downtown Westerly brought some much-needed victuals to revive my soggy soul. I stopped at Old Man Joe’s, a new-ish cafe, and rather maniacally stared at the poor barista when he said they were out of bagels. Lucky for me, they were experimenting with a new lunch menu, so when that freshly baked sausage, pepper, and onion hand pie was delivered, it was promptly devoured. I was a little wary at first since I was still feeling the residual effects from food poisoning, but the sausage was either linguica or chourico, and it wasn’t nearly as fatty as an Italian banger. Paired with a latte, and I felt quite revived. They have live music here and it’s overall a quiet (read: undiscovered!) spot for reading a book, drawing, or just sipping a coffee and watching the world go by.

Other Westerly Stops

Okay, this irks me, but I’m going to recommend a place without having visited it—scratch that, I’m going to say I want to visit this place. Across the street from Old Man Joe’s is a cute little cheese shop (adjacent to a wine store, how fortuitous!) called The Cheese Corner. Grab some wine, some cheese, and maybe a pasty from Old Man Joe’s for a nice little picnic at Wilcox Park—even better in the summertime, when there’s a Shakespeare in the Park showing.