December 31st 2011: Southeastern 6th Circle

I continued my sightseeing in Walpole this foggy morning, visiting some areas before trying to look for "The Pinnacle".

Union Congregational Church

Blessed Sacrament Church

Bird Memorial Clock and Tower,
57 Chestnut Street

Chapel of St. Mary

Diamond Pond, Old Diamond Street

Lieutenant Barachiah Lewis Statue,
Plimpton Street and East Street

Cobbs Pond, Main Street near Sherwood Drive

Rainbow Pond, Peach Street near High Plain Street

The next place I went to was the part of Plimpton Road which crosses over the Neponset River, near Lavender Lane. It is mentioned that there is a rock outcropping here called "The Pinnacle" which overlooks the river, but no matter how I tried, climbing up to the railway line above or walking along the Endean Trail, I could not find it. There were some decent views of the river and Plimpton Pond, however.

Neponset River

Plimpton Pond

Next, I headed to the Francis William Bird Park. I decided to park at the Polley Lane parking area, close to Old Post Road, and the route I took here is shown below in pink.

Walking past the entrance, I walked across the field to the next field, where on the left there was a music court.

Musical Court

Entrance to the park

I then carried on past the flag pole to get to the Memorial Gate, where I saw a few Canadian Geese wading in a pond

At the gate, there were a few birds in the bushes, and while most of them flew away as I stepped closer, this one bird seemed not afraid at all, chirping happily away while posing for me.

After taking a picture of the gate itself from the outside, I headed back into the park to take one last picture of Willow Pond before heading all the way back out to my car.

Memorial Gate

Willow Pond

With that, I was finally done with Walpole, and I headed to the next town of Westwood. I wanted to for a Chinese lunch at Blue Orchid restaurant, but before that, I happened to pass by a couple of interesting buildings.

Edmund W. Thurston Middle School

Veteran's Park, High Street and Park Street

St. Margaret Mary Church

St. Denis Church

Crouse Pond

The Blue Orchid was a pretty nice little Chinese restaurant, and I decided to try the Crispy Tangerine Beef and the Seafood Pan Fried Noodles, both of which were very delicious, but too much overall and I had to get a doggy bag for them.

Inside Blue Orchid Restaurant

Seafood Pan Fried Noodles

Crispy Tangerine Beef

I first went to the Pheasant Hill Conservation Area at the end of Pheasant Hill Road to try to find the supposed lookout point, but the trails were so overgrown, and I did not have a map of the area, so I decided to give up on my quest.

I next went to Buckmaster Pond, which is a pretty nice water body that had hooded mergansers and mallards swimming in it when I went as well as people walking their dogs.

Hooded Mergansers

Mallard Ducks

Finally, I decided to head to the Lowell Woods, located at the end of Sandy Valley Road. The route I took is shown below in black, which was basically walking all the way along Sandy Valley Road to the bridge on the map.

The bridge itself, unfortunately, wasn't very impressive.

Bridge at Lowell Woods

At this point, I decided that it was too late to explore the Hale Reservation, so I decided to head to the town of Dedham instead, where I visited some interesting places before heading for dinner with a friend in Malden.

St. Luke's Evangelical Lutheran Church

New Generation Christian Center

Daniel R. Beckford Jr Square,
Oakdale Avenue and Cobbler Lane

Dedham Middle School

Church of the Good Shepherd

Finally, it was off to dinner with my friend in Malden. We decided to try some Ethiopian cuisine today at Habesha Ethiopian Restaurant. I decided to have the Gord Gord (Beef cubes sauteed in a kind of spicy curry sauce), while my friend had the Yebeg Alicha (Lamb in tumeric sauce with herbs). We had expected separate plates, but the two dishes came served on a large piece of Injera bread, with rolls of Injera bread on the side for us to use with our fingers.

Gord Gord and Yebeg Alicha on Injera Bread

Overall, while the meat itself was very tasty, the Ethiopian bread was a little sour and not to our liking. After dinner, we had originally wanted to go and see the fireworks in Boston, but as the weather was too cold, we decided to head to the movies in Revere instead, going to the Showcase Cinema De Lux theatre there to watch Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. We enjoyed the movie thoroughly, and had our own little New Year celebration after the movie.

I'm looking forward to the new year, with more and more sightseeing trips planned in  the coming days.