Goose Creek State Park, Washington, N.C.

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Goose Creek State Park

Goose Creek State Park offers a variety of activities and landscapes to explore along the Pamlico River. The park has more than eight miles of hiking trails, including the wheelchair-accessible Palmetto Boardwalk, the Goose Creek Trail and the Live Oak Trail, all of which are short and easy. Other amenities include a swim beach, tent camping, boat docks, picnic areas and a nature center.

The River Access picnic grounds are set in a mixed forest on the way to the swimming beach. In addition to four tables under the shelter and two adjacent grills, there are eight more tables and three more grills. The Flicker Field picnic area, which is near the park entrance and the visitor center, has the same setup on a large field suitable for open play. There are four more tables at the beach (below).

Here’s something you don’t see often in a place you might not expect to see it: a pay phone in the woods near the beach, there for emergencies.

My brother Garry and I were at Goose Creek on a nice August day in 2011 just days before Hurricane Irene struck. After the beach, we headed down the 0.4-mile Live Oak Trail, a loop along a stretch of the shoreline and into the woods.

Near the beach, the Live Oak Trail meanders from water to woods along the Pamlico River. Weathered trees, stumps and driftwood make the shoreline portion of the trail a picturesque walk.

Trees on the river are unprotected when the wind blows.

Just feet from the water, the landscape changes. True to its name, the trail is home to several live oak trees.

Once more out to the shore before turning inward and upland …

One feature of the trail just beyond the turn from the shore is a family graveyard that dates to the mid-1800s.

Authorities think the graves belong to victims of a disease outbreak across the river who were buried here to protect others.

The understory becomes grassy as we head back toward the River Access area parking lot.

Goose Creek State Park Camping

Goose Creek offers 14 primitive campsites, below, for tents on the western end of the peninsula between Goose Creek and Flatty Creek. They are widely spaced among tall pines in a strip along an access road. Many trees in the campground were knocked down by Hurricane Irene on August 26, 2011.

There are two vault toilets on the road and several water spigots dispersed along the way, as well. A small boat launch and the trailhead for the 1.9-mile Goose Creek Trail are at the end of the gravel road that runs the length of the campground to Goose Creek. (A full-size boat ramp, Dinah’s Landing, is across the creek.)

We saw several pileated woodpeckers among the trees, each of which was too fast for our camera.

Below, the group campsite, a short walk in from the park’s main road, accommodates up to 30 people in tents. A parking lot, toilets and water are across the street. The park’s two group camping sites are open from mid-March to late-November and require reservations.

The Flatty Creek Trail, a 1-mile loop off of the campground road, drew our attention. The trail goes through an upland forest and over the brackish marsh to an observation platform on the creek.

From the platform, we look left then right, below.

Back at the visitors center, the Discovery Room has more than 50 examples of the wildlife that can be found in the park, along with examples of animal tracks and scat, and other exhibits about the area’s flora, fauna and environment.

Goose Creek State Park is about 10 miles east of Washington off of U.S. 264 and N.C. 92 in Beaufort County — just before the split toward Belhaven or Bath.