Today, I was invited to go mountain biking at
Otter River State Forest in central northern Massachusetts. As I had some time in the morning before heading to their campsite at Beaman Pond, I went sightseeing for a little while in the town of Orange, passing by the Bell Pond Beach on Belmont Road near Seabury Heights in Worcester along the way.
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| Bell Pond |
In order to get a good picture of
Lake Rohunta in Orange, I ended up going to the town of Athol instead, taking pictures of the pond from the dam there at the junction of Partridgeville Road and Daniel Shays Highway.
In Orange, I visited a few interesting places, including a statue of a dog outside the
police station commemorating police dogs, Memorial Park on the corner of South Main Street and Water Street, and the
Millers River which runs through the town center. Do also note that there is a place for skydiving here at the
Orange Municipal Airport with a company called
Jumptown.
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| Orange Municipal Airport |
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| K-9 Memorial outside Police Department |
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| Memorial Park |
Millers River at Water Street
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| Orange Town Hall, 6 Prospect Street |
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| First Universalist Church, 31 North Main Street |
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| Old Central School, 34 North Main Street |
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| Orange Historical Society, 41 North Main Street |
Finally, it was time to head to Otter River State Forest in Winchendon to meet up with everyone else who had camped the night at the
camping sites near Beaman Pond. They were still having breakfast when I got there, and thankfully I did not need to pay the $5 fee to park there. Soon, we started on our bike ride. The route we took here is shown below in pink.
We first headed back out to the main road to head to
Lake Dennison.
The recreational area, complete with a beach on the shores of the lake, was beautiful
as always.
From here, we headed down the road to Goodnow Road, then turned onto Middle Road to go visit the King Phillip Rock. My friend tried to climb it, but ultimately failed as there were hardly any footholds near the top. It was fun watching him climb like a monkey up the rock, though.
Our next destination was the
Birch Hill Dam in Royalston. We got lost for a bit, heading north on Goodnow Road instead of following the Millers River on our left, mainly because the river branches off here. We soon found our way, however. Pictures on the way to the dam, follow.
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| Behind Birch Hill Dam |
The views from the top of the dam were pretty good as well, although there wasn't much water flowing through in the middle of a drought, and it was definitely better covered in snow, which it was the last time I came here.
Heading back, we took another road, Swamp Road back, heading past the Beaver Pond.
By now, I was really tired, so I lagged behind the rest of the pack most of the rest of the way back. After reaching Lake Dennison, we headed down the other path to avoid the main road, which was actually a better route to reach the campsite.
After having a nice lunch of grilled sausage, chicken, chips and bananas back at the campsite, I had to leave while everyone else went back to Lake Dennison for a dip in the water, as I had to go to Boston for a meetup event at
Myung Dong in Allston.
I enjoyed my time at Myung Dong, having the Boodae Jungol, the Japchae, and the Dolsot BiBimBap, all of which were really good. I wasn't able to take any pictures though, and I had to leave early to meet my chef friend at
Oishii, as we were leaving the next day to New York for 2 days.
While waiting, I had a hard time deciding what dessert to get, since I already got most of the artistic ones, but I ended up getting the Green Tea Layer Cake with Rum Raisin Crumble, which was really good as well. On top of that, my friend made me a Spicy Tuna Tartare dish, which was as fancy as it was tasty.
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| Green Tea Layer Cake with Rum Raisin Crumble |
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| Spicy Tuna Tartare |
With that, another fun yet tiring Saturday ended. Looking forward to New York and meeting up with my friends again tomorrow.
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