Beautiful Babylon...A walk in the park.

9/13 SAT, BEAUTIFUL BABYLON...A WALK IN THE PARK. (detailed notes follow this description.) From Penn Station, take the LIRR train to Babylon. Let’s regroup on the platform at the Babylon train station upon arrival at 10:23 a.m. Walk along the shaded paths that will take us to and around Belmont Lake. This approximately 8-mile walk will begin from the Babylon Long Island Rail Road station. There’s a lively and lovely walking path (shared by pedestrians and bicyclists) that goes past Southards Pond and up to Belmont Lake, where we’ll have lunch. Our return walk will take us along similar paths back to Babylon, through the downtown, and finally to the train station. (You can skip the downtown if you want to get the train sooner.) The town is quite busy at this time of year, with shops and cafes and restaurants, if you want to explore after the walk and take a later train.
More details here:
a. Update on the train time! From Penn station, take the 9:16am (LIRR train towards Farmingdale) to Jamaica (arrival 9:37am) (I will leave from the Jamaica stop.) At Jamaica, take the 9:42am (train towards Speonk) arriving in Babylon at 10:23am. Recommended: TrainTime App has the most up-to-date times, track numbers and allows you to purchase tickets.
b. Meet and regroup on the arrival platform at the Babylon station; we will walk down to the ground floor of the station where there are restrooms, plus an exhibit on a historic feat by a cyclist!
c. Lunch: Please bring water and a packed lunch. There are limited opportunities to get food at the start of the walk. Lunch in an area with picnic tables and there *might be food trucks there, but there might not. Better to be prepared.
d. Remember that if you are not a member of the Outdoors Club, the cost is $5.
e. Weather: Saturday’s forecast shows sunny skies. If it suddenly changes to all day rain I’ll cancel by the end of the day on Friday.
f. Return train times from Babylon to Penn station are roughly: 2:42pm, 2:59pm, 3:59pm, 4:14pm…
g. If you want to leave early, no problem, but you will be on your own.