With its location on the lake, and the free-to-anyone, no restrictions, no Town of Meredith facilities decal required for parking; the Cattle Landing town parking lot and dock makes for a super-duper kayak and canoe parking and loading spot. Some cars seem to prefer to park on nearby Patricia Drive, a steep paved town road, to avoid the summer-time car crunch in the town's dirt p-lot.
For kayaks and canoes, the dock problems listed above apply to motor boats, but do not really apply to kayaks or canoes so much because they probably get dragged up onto the sandy and grassy shoreline, or get tied to the dock, or get dragged up onto the concrete dock. There is obviously a big difference between a kayak or canoe and a motorboat.
Car-top boats like kayaks & canoes only have a very short distance to be carried to get on the water.....thru the 60" fence opening (that is also used by snowmobiles/atv's/bobhouses-in-tow in winter except for the open water problem caused by the ice eat'n, water circulators) and down the short, grassy, somewhat steep, slope.......and what a fantastic, beautifull kayak area it is. It is a short paddle around the bend to the right (west) to the medium big-water area of the lake that's between south Bear Island, Mark Isl, Timber Isl, Governor's Island in Gilford, Meredith Neck, and Stonedam Island in Meredith.
Stonedam Island is a conservation easement island that is all forested and has a hiking trail and several small natural beach areas, and is about a 1 1/2 mile paddle from the Cattle Landing put-in and parking spot. A boating map is strongly suggested because, except for Dolly Island, there are no signs out on the water telling you which island is which and all islands are private property except for Stonedam Island, and maybe Horse Island, which is very small and uninhabited.
And, if you like it here and just won the PowerBall, then there's a terrific house nearby at a very prominent spot
www.highdomain.com that's up for sale at 3.2-million dollars, assessed for 2.05-mil with prop taxes of about $2200/month. It has two 'for sale' signs facing the water!
There's not even a sign at the Cattle Landing town dock & parking lot which probably makes it the one and only town facility without a sign ......... so maybe it is supposed to be a secret or something!
And, the 50-cent payphone that was next to the dock for many, many years, attached to the Fairpoint Communications switching equipment, concrete shed located directly on the shoreline has been removed.