We have been exploring wonderful places to walk with our caching bestie, GeoCassi, and have discovered Kennedy Park as an amazing place to hike (and kayak, more on this later). Kennedy Park seems underutilized but has a fantastic Nature Trail (3 miles roundtrip from the parking coords) and a nice new section of paved Wolf River Greenway (more than 3 miles roundtrip) with many bridges. The nature trail is for hiking and has a nice boardwalk through the Wolf River floodplains in the woods and then crosses the Greenway for a nice hike along the Wolf River before it runs inland and ends by one set of baseball fields. The greenway is suited to hiking, biking, running, and you can do a hybrid of on-the-pavement and on-the-trail (hardpacked dirt) as desired since the nature trail and greenway cross multiple times. Thanks to the Wolf Rver Conservancy for creating the greenway spaces. A new sign was being installed at the Greenway Trailhead as we placed this cache.
There is a trailhead off Raleigh-LaGrange between Austin Peay and Covington Pike for access to the Greenway, but street parking here may feel a little uncomfortable at present time. That being said, we parked here for a couple of hours on another occassion without incident. For the nature trail, better to park inside Kennedy Park at the coords listed, across from the senior citizens center.
There is also a boat ramp along the river in between the nature trail and the greenway where the super adventurous can put-in to go to Mud Island or take-out from Walnut Grove. We did both during the fall, but without a guide or a tour, it requires a significant portage of your canoes/kayaks (.3 mi from the baseball fields at the end of the park) and cars outfitted in both locations for the return. Best way to do this is to sign up for a Wolf River Conservancy paddle or another local outfitter because they will take boats through the locked gate to the ramp and organize transportation at put-in and take-out.
Cache is a small camo'd bottle, hidden along the nature trail about .5 mile from the parking coords, bring your own pen.