Donovan – Wildcat Conservation Area – Norwell, MA
Today, weather wise, is the nicest day of the year in our area, it’s almost 70 degrees for the first time since 2020 and I am in heaven. Since my son is at daycare today I planned to take my daughter on a walk in her stroller since we never usually do that and she’s always in her carrier. Well, that idea all went down the crap shoot when a trail head marker caught my eye which usually happens so I’m not sure why I was surprised lolol. Originally, I was going to walk along the Norwell Pathway, which extends from the Donovan – Wildcat parking area all the way past the Middle School and back up Forest Street to the Miller and Fogg Forest entrance (about 2 miles all together.) Well, we got up over the footbridge to the Middle School and then headed back to the car to swap out the jogger stroller for the carrier, sorry girl, and off into the woods we went.
Let me back up for a minute, stroller – wise, the Norwell Pathway is absolutely perfect. It’s basically all paved, aside from the nicely constructed foot bridge and the stone dust so it’s very easy to walk on, ride your bike or even roller blade (I saw someone doing that today and was very jealous!!) The sidewalks all through the area make it easy to walk from beyond the Middle School, past the Donovan Farm, up Forest Street over to the Miller Forest and eventually will even meet up with the Norris Reservation. I didn’t get nearly that far because once I walked past the bee keepers area I noticed the first “D1” sign and I couldn’t let it go. So, we walked over to the Middle School and instead of continuing on I decided to turn around, drop the stroller in the car and put the baby in the carrier, and I am SO glad that I did.
There are two different parts to the Donovan- Wildcat Conservation and you’ll notice that based on what trail markers you see, well almost 5 miles later we traveled through both, but either one was really cool. The D1 sign is the first part of the Donovan Woodlands that is located across the street from the Donovan Farm. I realized when I reached the end of one part of the trail that I was actually on the “Margret Brook” section. There were some cool structures along this path, including some remnants of the old apple orchid from the 1950s, a bunch of benches and a really old stone firepit. If you cross over the little bridge (and I mean little) to the island where the firepit is the trail continues in the ‘Reserve’ private neighborhood before reaching the end and making you turn back around. You’ll want to head back to the beginning of the D1 trail head and towards the parking area to meet back up with the other parts of the Donovan trail system along with the Wildcat trails.
To find the rest of the trailheads you need to walk up Circuit Street for about 100 feet to the entrance of the conservation area. These trails are all through the woods, and very very well marked. We traveled from D2 over to a fork in the woods where D3 pointed right and D5 pointed left, naturally I decided to go where there was a better looking path but no trail head which is why I rely on the AllTrails app so much. You can record your hike so you know exactly where you are going and where you are headed and it really helps when you decide to travel on the unmarked path like I do sometimes :). Eventually, the D4 path took us all the way through the woods and met up with the Wildcat portion of the forest. I read on the sign near the parking lot that Wildcat Hill (a 140 foot hill) is where freed slaves owned by the Clapp Family (the old owners of the Farm) settled and eventually emancipated slaves from Hingham and Plymouth joined them. There’s a bench at the told of the hill so take a minute and look around at the history you are standing over, it’s really quite overwhelming.
The Wildcat trails continue all through the woods to a few trailheads that open up to Wildcat Lane, I’ve honestly driven by them about a million times on my way to and from Target and had no idea they were there. There isn’t really anywhere to park though, there was one car kind of in the woods at one of the trail heads but otherwise you’ll need to park at the main parking lot on Circuit Street. When we reached the end of the forest is when I finally turned around, now with a passed out baby in the carrier I decided to skip over the D4 trail through the woods and walked straight up a hill to what looked like an old cart path. This portion of the trail was way different than the rest, it was open, flat and grassy and led us back to the parking lot.
Overall quiet the detour I ended up with, a quick walk in the stroller ended up an almost 5 mile hike in the woods but it was awesome and quiet and totally worth it. Bridge-wise, the main footbridge on the Norwell Pathway portion is really cool and it’s pretty long. Also, along the Margret Brook entrance there were a few other, albeit very skinny bridges and even some places that could use some bridges because they were so muddy. I give this a good bridge rating, good enough that I’ll have to bring my son back to them. If you want to take a stroller walk I would recommend this area as well, just make sure you stay on the main paved part otherwise you’ll need to switch to a carrier like yours truly!
