It's hard to believe today, but this lovely wooded reservation used
to be mostly cow pasture. The remains of the pasture are still
visible in the grounds of the nearby office parks, but most of the
grazing area has been overgrown by young forest, giving birth to
the lovely Walkup and Robinson Memorial Reservation in Westboro.
This suburban oasis has given us hours of relaxation as we have
hiked its gentle trails (usually with plenty of bug spray). But it
also has a few nuggets of local history. The reservation features a
straight, level strip of land that was formerly a right-of-way of
the Boston-Worcester trolley line. In the days before Route 9 and
the Mass Pike, this was a main thoroughfare of commerce between two
major eastern Massachusetts cities. Unfortunately, cows and trolley
cars don't get along very well, so someone kindly built an
underpass to the trolley line that enabled the cows to pass
unimpeded to greener pastures. Traveling 2. miles northeast of the
cache site, you can find the cow bridge at 42 16.730', 071 34.608'.
Note that the passage underneath is about one cow wide! There's
also an old well in the vicinity.
While you're at the cow bridge, visit
The Walkup Trader, a nice travel bug hotel in the vicinity.
The cache is a conventional ammo box. It's a little off the
trail, but you should be able to get there without much
bushwhacking. The cache location is visible from 50 feet away. Be
sure to re-hide the container carefully, as this area is heavily
trafficked during the warmer months. You might be traveling the
same path taken by thousands of cows over the last 100 years. How
lucky can you get?
Be sure to check out the other caches in our Animalzzzz series:
Dogzzzz,
Catzzzz and
Llamazzzz