Psst! We’ve got a fun little surprise for you at the end of this post! Scroll down to find an illustrated Nature Walk Scavenger Hunt that you can take with you on this, or any outdoor adventure!
Family hikes definitely seem to have been a rising trend in 2020 as we all (desperately) looked for ways to get our kids out of the house in a safe and responsible way. And my family was no different! We frequented our favorite walking trails and happily set out to explore some new-to-us ones.
One of the trails we discovered last fall is the Cheney Rail Trail in Manchester, CT.
Now, rail trails are nothing new to this blog. We’ve traversed quite a few of them! From the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail to the Airline State Park Trail, we love these (mostly) easy walking trails established alongside old railroad routes (hence the rails-to-trails moniker).
Now that spring has sprung in Connecticut (although, in true New England fashion as I sit here writing this there is an 80% chance of snow tomorrow. Sigh.) I wanted to share this new adventure with you all!
On a map, we could see that one end of the trail was fairly near one of our favorite playgrounds: Charter Oak Park. So we thought we’d park at the playground, take a nice walk over to the trail, explore for a bit and then finish up with some playscape playtime.
Although this wasn’t an entirely flawed plan, I will confess that the walk over to the trail was quite a bit longer than I had an anticipated (apparently I am a lousy map reader). It did, however, take us by some historic landmarks so that was pretty neat.
Along the trail we did see another small area for parking (I’ll show you that later), so that could be a better place to hop on the trail if you don’t want to have to traipse through city blocks to get there. Or if anyone else knows the secret to trail-side parking, please let us know! On this adventure we didn’t make it all the way from one end of the trail to the other (mostly due to the fact that we had a bit of a hike just to get to our hike LOL), so perhaps there are parking areas we missed.
So our adventure began at Charter Oak Park. From there we walked along the sidewalk of Hartford Avenue (which is a pretty busy street, so just something to be aware of), then went right onto Elm Street and cut through the parking lot of the Lofts at the Mills where the entrance to the trail is clearly marked.
As expected, there was plenty of excitement over the old railroad tracks. Along with the requisite balancing act.
The trail is easy and flat. You could walk, run, bike, push a stroller. It’s definitely a multi-use pathway. It’s not paved though, so things like roller blades or scooters would probably be out.
Over here we noticed a small parking area just near that pond. It appears to be a public park (I think I identified this later on a map as Center Springs Park) so I would assume you could park here and access the trail (it’s just a short walk across the road). I think this may be the midpoint of the trail.
As I mentioned earlier, there may be bigger or better areas to park as well. Below is a map illustration I found online at the Manchester Land Trust website that seems to indicate additional parking areas, as well as connections to other area trails, like the East Coast Greenway that passes through Charter Oak Park.
Unfortunately, by the time we got to this point Little Miss (age 3) was pretty much spent and the idea of carrying her for another couple miles to the end and back was not the most appealing option (you’d think by my third child I would know to just bring the stroller). Plus we knew the kids were itching to get on the playscape and the walk back was decent given that we also had to make our way back from the trail end to Charter Oak Park.
So we called it a day here and headed back. I’d hesitate to call it a family hike. The terrain was flat and smooth. The path was more open than wooded. It was more like an adventurous stroll.
In the interest of full disclosure, our walk that day was motivated in part by wanting to check out a new trail for the blog, but also to fulfill one of the kids’ school assignments that required them to take a walk outside and find a variety of items in nature using their 5 senses–kind of like a scavenger hunt, although thankfully they didn’t have to bring anything home with them, just check them off a list!
It really made the walk so much more entertaining for them to have this task! And I was reminded of all the other times we’ve seen scavenger hunt activities like this offered at parks, museums, zoos, etc. to help keep kids engaged and focused.
So today, with the help of my super talented 10-year-old son (and an amazing app called Sketches School that he adores), we’ve created a Nature Walk Scavenger Hunt that you can download, print and take with you on your next outdoor adventure!
PRINT YOUR FREE COPY OF OUR NATURE WALK SCAVENGER HUNT HERE.
Whether it be a stroll on the Cheney Rail Trail, one of the other dozen or so trails we’ve blogged about, or your family’s own favorite hiking spot, we hope this fun game makes getting “out and about” outdoors even more enjoyable!
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