Spring on the North Shore

On Saturday Katy and I went for a series of walks at some of the parks and woodlands of Massachusett's north shore. This was Plan B; we had intended to hike up Mt. Monadnock, but threatening weather convinced us to stay closer to home. While we ended up with a much more modest day of walking, it was nonetheless quite lovely.

We began by driving north from Cambridge to Manchester and then toward Gloucester on Massachusetts route 127, looking for Ravenswood Park, a 600 acre preserve of the the Trustees of Reservations. Before we got to it, though, we stumbled across a different Trustees' parcel at Coolidge Point. This small park contains a large pond and the lovely Ocean Lawn, an expanse of grass punctuated by some magnificent trees. The coastline here is very different from the sandy Cape Cod beaches I know know visiting Katy's parents in Falmouth; the shore is much more rugged.

From 2009-04-18

From Coolidge Point it's a very short trip to Ravenswood Park. This large park has many small ponds and vernal pools, some nice views of the ocean, and lots of rocks covered with this interesting growth.



On our way out, we observed that a young visitor had made a presumably unintended contribution...




Our last walk was at Halibut Point, a park we've visited several times before. Just north of Rockport, this preserve offers a rather unusual tower, an inactive quarry, some stupendous rock piles, and interesting tidal pools.













We capped the trip with a visit to Passports restaurant in Gloucester. The food was superb.