New Jersey Kayaking

I'd like to say something good about the Millstone River, but it's hard to. The Millstone is a very badly-behaved river. It regularly goes from almost-dry to flood stage. It is surrounded by a wild and undeveloped flood plain, crossed by few elevated roads, so access points are few. There are also a number of weirs on the river, which create pond-like conditions upstream, but are otherwise impassible. I had once hoped to find some routes crossing over between the river and the D&R Canal, but there really aren't any. That's a shame, because it would be neat to paddle up the canal and get carried home on the river, or shush down the river and have a nice leisurely paddle home on the canal.

The only decent access points on the Millstone River are (north to south) at Blackwells Mills, Griggstown, and Kingston. Anywhere else, you are up against no parking, steep banks, and poison ivy. The access at Griggstown would actually be very nice, but some genius completely blocked it with an enormous tree stump, which is surrounded by poison ivy. This probably happened late summer 2025 after a storm toppled a lot of trees. If you care, contact the town / county and try to get them to move it. If not for that stump (and the poison ivy!) you could make a loop between Kingston and Griggstown, about ten miles. But with Griggstown blocked, you'd have to paddle back up the river, and I wouldn't recommend that.

Not far north of Griggstown is a weir that disconnects it from Blackwell's Mills, so that loop won't work, and there is another weir just north of Blackwell's Mills. There appears to be a river access in Manville that I didn't explore, but there is no way to portage to the canal from there. So basically, you could explore the impoundments upstream of the weirs, but they don't look very big, and with the canal nearby, I wouldn't bother. South of Princeton is the Millstone Reservoir, with pond-like conditions and a short section of navigable river.

The Millstone River interchange with the Delaware & Raritan Canal and Lake Carnegie at Kingston.

The Millstone River interchange with the Delaware & Raritan Canal, Stony Brook, and Lake Carnegie at Plainsboro.