Pine Cliff Picnic Area, Croatan National Forest

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Pine Cliff Picnic Area

The Pine Cliff Picnic Area provides a covered picnic shelter with wheelchair-accessible tables on a wooded lot overlooking the Neuse River.

The free Cherry Branch-Minnesott Beach ferry is right up the road, as is Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, which means it’s not always a peaceful setting.

The shelter also has a grill with work space at each side, and there are additional, unsheltered tables and grills on the grounds, as well as a vault toilet and a water spigot.

Note the extended ends of the picnic tables to accommodate wheelchairs.

The Pine Cliff site is at the northern end of the Neusiok Trail, which bisects the Croatan National Forest. You can pick it up at the far end of the picnic grounds and walk its 23 miles to Oyster Point Campground near Newport. Hikers can camp along the Neusiok, but not at the picnic grounds.

The small beach has room for fishing or just watching the river and ferryboats. (Get information about the Cherry Point-Minnesott Beach Ferry here.)

There was some wreckage from a pier, perhaps, to the left when we were there in August 2011, a few days before Hurricane Irene hit, and a sailboat farther up the beach that looked like it had been marooned there for quite a while.