Posted By auntie on January 17, 2014

2.5 miles; seekonk, ma

caratunk was on my list o’places i wanted to get to this year, but this massachusetts audubon society preserve has seen better days. trail blazes were fitful; sometimes good, sometimes bad. same for the signage. the trails themselves were a bit messy and the bridges and boardwalks were also sometimes good, sometimes shaky. at any rate, it’s small and very noisy, with road noise and construction noise.

signage

as you can see, some of the signage wasn’t bad, and some was just gone.

boardwalk

i started out on this boardwalk on the blue trail, but it became increasingly shaky and started to sink under the water, so i backtracked and cut the hike a bit short.

ruins

part of the blue trail follows an old farm or woods road, and this sluiceway (? i think?) was along the road. there were great granite slabs used to cross the brook here.

observation “tower”

i came to a side trail marked “observation tower.” it sounded cool, but it wasn’t much of a tower. to be fair, though, this looked out over a very large field dotted with bluebird nesting boxes, and i would imagine in the summer it’s alive with swallows and bluebirds. in fact, i think caratunk is probably a birder’s paradise. it has a nice mix of habitats, from swamps and ponds, to hemlock and beach woods, to these fields. so on that basis, i’d recommend taking a trip out to seekonk. for pure hiking, however, it was kind of a bust.

i have added this hike to the hikefinder.

Categories: Massachusetts, Walks and Hikes
Tags: 2–5 miles, MA, Seekonk MA