Today, I woke up pretty late, and it was still freezing cold as I set out for
Hemlock Gorge Reservation, which straddles Needham and Newton across the
Charles River. The route I took here after parking at 1 Hamilton Place in Needham is highlighted below in pink.
The first place I went to was the dam and falls indicated on the map, which is Hemlock Gorge itself. Beautiful views of the waterfall here follow.
I then headed down to the shore of the Charles River to take this view of the Echo Bridge.
Heading back up, I went to cross the bridge itself. The views of the Charles River from here were fantastic.
At the Newton side of Echo Bridge, I headed down to Echo Point, which is a small platform between the arches of Echo Bridge directly over the Charles River. Here, the resonance of the sounds is clearly what gave the place its name.
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| The Newton Side of Echo Bridge |
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| Echo Point |
On the Newton side, I headed to the small dam near the junction of Boylston Street and Ellis Street, which wasn't as impressive as Hemlock Gorge, of course.
Heading all the way back to the Needham side, I then ventured to the other side of Echo Bridge to go find the Devil's Den, crossing a wooden bridge along the way.
From this side of the river, there is a lovely view of the Echo Bridge as well.
There were also some hooded mergansers swimming happily in the freezing water. Crazy birds.
It was a little hard to find the Devil's Den, and one needs to know where to look for it, because it is below the main path, etched into the side of the mountain.
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| Devil's Den |
From here, I headed to the circular dam nearby, where the waterfall was just as good at Hemlock Gorge.
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| Circular Dam |
Heading all the way back up the hill, I decided to head down the path I had yet to explore to capture one last view of New Pond.
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| New Pond |
With that, I headed all the way back to my car and headed to the town of Newton. Unfortunately, I had a meetup lunch in Quincy at noon, so I could only visit 1 place in town, the
Levanthal-Sidman Jewish Community Center, before I had to leave.
I arrived at the China Pearl Restaurant on 237 Quincy Avenue a little late. We got a lot of dimsum, and I took the chance to order a dish of Barbecued Pork Pastry (Char Siew Sou), which I had not had for a long time, and for dessert, we got sweet tofu pudding (Douhua).
The food was really good, and the company was great. I even met someone from Singapore as well, and we had a bit of a conversation about life in Singapore and the army. After lunch, we were to head to the
Shea Memorial Skating Rink, and I was going to drive my new Singaporean friend over as well, but as it turned out, I had left my hazard lights on by mistake, and my car refused to start. I tried using my car jump starter park to jump-start it, but it did not work. My friend ended up going with someone else, and I had to take a lift from another car to go to the rink. When we got there, it was really crowded, and they had actually run out of skates which were my size.
As a result, I ended up not skating, talking to my new friends who were in the same predicament as me instead, and the time flew by till everyone decided to leave. One of my friends then drove me back to my car and helped me to jump start it.
With that, I decided to do some impromptu sightseeing in Quincy as the sun was not quite set yet.
Pictures follow.
With that, I headed for dinner at my friend's place in Framingham, but soon after I felt so exhausted from the events of the day that I decided to head home early.
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