A Walk on Dead Neck Trail

Cape Cod is richly supplied with walking trails and wildlife refuges of all kinds. One I see quite often but had not paid much attention to is the Dead Neck Trail, which accessible from the Mashpee Town Beach parking lot. It's not very long, just a mile and a half, but because most of it is soft sand it can be challenging.

Dead Neck runs between the dunes and the marsh, giving the walker a nice view of both. Because the dunes block the sea view it can feel pretty hot in the trail in the middle of the day, but the discomfort of heat is offset by the relative solitude of the trail. Once past the boardwalk to the beach you will seldom encounter another person. The only sounds will be birds. I had the amusing experience today of hearing a mockingbird imitating sea bird calls.

This solitude must be why several signs point out that public nudity is prohibited. I had to push the boundaries of public nudity today by removing my shirt (I was wearing a bra) to use it as a fly swatter because of the famous greenhead fly, which was present today in large numbers. I am lucky enough not to be appealing to mosquitoes, but flies have no such reluctance to feast on me. The beautiful salt marshes that border so many Cape Cod beaches do not contain mosquitoes but are instead the home of the dreaded greenhead. Greenheads are notorious biters and may be the only thing that stands between the residents of Cape Cod and billions of tourists. They swarm the beaches in large numbers and bite like crazy. In addition to Deet, Tanqueray gin is rumored to be an effective defense which I will be trying out. I think gin has the dual virtues of being cheap and also not absorbing into your skin.