On a recent visit down to the shore we spent an afternoon visiting Cape May and some of the activities that it has to offer. On our stop...the New Jersey Audubon's Nature Center of Cape May. It's free to visit and extremely family-friendly with a whole host of educational activities being offered.
You'll find the Nature Center of Cape May located on 1600 Delaware Avenue. Upon arrival, you'll want to park your vehicle right out front. On the day that we visited, there were ONLY 2 other families there...so it wasn't crowded at all.
We entered through the main doors which takes you into their gift shop. You can see some beautiful works of art by local artists (for sale) and shop for gifts and souvenirs. There is a small playroom on this floor that is decked out with a child's play kitchen set where the kids can play. You'll find the restrooms on this floor too.
Head on up the flight of stairs to see some really cool displays. I really enjoyed visiting their fossil and bone yard to see coastal/beach fossils and to see a variety of different seashells on display. I'm a shell collector, so I really enjoyed seeing them.
On the second floor you'll see a few aquariums that house a few different type's of smaller snakes and reptiles. I'm not fond of snakes at all, however...my husband and granddaughter enjoyed looking at them. In that particular area they also had some snake skins on display and other items.
Before heading outside to walk around the outdoor deck, you'll want to grab a pair of binoculars that they have to offer (free to use, but you must return them). Once outside on the deck...you can walk around the entire building via the deck to do some bird watching and you can get some great views of their gardens. We saw about 4-5 different birds during the short time we were there.
Once your done with that activity, I highly recommend that you take the short flight of stairs up to the observation tower. While we were up there we got some fantastic views of the Cape May Harbor and the surrounding area. It was really worth climbing those few stairs on a 95+ degree day to see that fantastic view!
After spending some time out on the observation deck, we headed back inside and down to the bottom floor into the gift shop. When we were previously down there we didn't have the chance to check out their live honeybee display and that was on our to-see list. They have their display set up in the corner and the honeybee's are free to come and go as they please.
While the family checked out the honeybees...I did a little gift shopping and picked up two t-shirts and some little souvenirs for the kids. The gift shop is medium-sized and they don't have a slew of things to offer, but what they do have is affordably priced.
We really enjoyed our visit to the New Jersey Audubon's Nature Center of Cape May and highly recommend that you check it out. It's FREE to visit and the perfect activity to do on an overly hot day or a rainy day when you want something to do other than the beach!
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