Consider your routines. On the roads you travel with some regularity, are there places you’ve always intended to stop, but never have? Do you pass signs for parks and conservation lands, little dirt parking areas that give no indication as to what might be down the paths leading away from them? The South Shore is home to many places such as these. Some small, some large – all offer a worthwhile diversion.
Years ago I had a part-time job in Cohasset Village. If I
happened to be heading north after work, I almost always left town via Main
Street, where I would pass, but never stop at, Wheelwright Park. The large
wooden sign over the entrance indicated that the site had some significance,
but somehow I never got around to exploring it.
I’m making an effort lately to visit conservation areas like
these – parcels I pass while riding my bike, or at night, or when I’m heading someplace else. Now I’m going back – on
purpose, during the day, when I have time to see what there is to see.
Wheelwright Park in Cohasset is the gateway to a set of
interconnected open space areas. The parking lot, at the end of a gravel drive,
offers immediate access to the park itself, as well as the Barnes Wildlife
Sanctuary. There is also a Boy Scout campground within hiking distance, a
skating pond, a picnic area, and the large and diverse parcel known as the
Cornelia & Richardson White Woods, which is part of Holly Hill Farm. Some
of the trails, originally put in place by the WPA, date back to 1935.
Altogether the parcels comprise more than 200 acres of open
space – a little bit of meadow, but mostly pine and oak woods, along with
groves of holly. I visited recently with a friend and her dogs, on a sunny
Sunday afternoon. Leashes are required in the parking lot, but otherwise, dogs
are permitted to run free, as long as they are kept under control. Trooper and
Little Foot enjoyed our visit immensely. We encountered a number of other dogs
on our route, most off-leash.
First we followed the main trail, a wide cart path that winds
its way to the second entrance, at Forest Avenue. Along the way were occasional
giant boulders – glacial erratics – large enough to make me stop and think
about how they got there. The boulders, which have been in place far longer
than any manmade structure, remind me that great sheets of ice once covered the
land. It was the receding of these glaciers that carved our present landscape
-- the hills and valleys, the riverbeds and ponds. The glaciers also dropped
the occasional boulder . . . thus in Wheelwright and its environs you’ll find
such behemoths as Big Tippling Rock, Little Tippling Rock, Split Rock, and the
Devil’s Chair.
The cart path traverses hilly terrain – not too steep, but
enough to get one’s heart pumping. There are also assorted, narrower trails that
lead off in either direction. After following the main trail all the way to
Forest Avenue, we backtracked to the signs that marked the entrance to White
Woods. I wished we’d brought a map – there were so many options! Instead we
followed our instincts and enjoyed several additional, well-marked trails, some
that traversed small streams.
Like most nature parcels,
Wheelwright Park is open from dawn to dusk, year-round. There is no charge for
admission. Look for the entrance off North Main Street in Cohasset. Dogs and
horses are welcome.
by Kezia Bacon, November 2012
Kezia Bacon's articles appear courtesy
of the North and South Rivers Watershed Association, a local non-profit
organization devoted to the preservation, restoration, maintenance and
conservation of the North and South Rivers and their watershed. For membership
information and a copy of their latest newsletter, contact NSRWA at (781)
659-8168 or visit www.nsrwa.org. To browse 15 years of Nature (Human and
Otherwise) columns, visit http://keziabaconbernstein.blogspot.com
