Take a walk on a scenic trail at Coventry's Riverview Trail Park. This 30-acre park offers excellent wildlife and bird watching opportunities. The half-mile-long riverside trail is dry and mostly level, but watch for rocks and stumps underfoot. Because it is in a floodplain, the trail may not be accessible during high water. Directions: From the junction of Rts. 195 and 32 in Mansfield, go south on Rt. 32 for 8 tenths of a mile and turn right onto Merrow Road. Cross the Willimantic River bridge into Coventry, turn right immediately onto Riverview Drive and park on the right. The park sign and trail entrance are by the bridge.
The trail begins behind the Riverview Trail Park sign and leads down to the river's edge. Turn left to follow the trail upstream through a floodplain forest of red maple and graceful, arching hornbeam trees, which shade a bench overlooking the river. Across the river, the bank rises steeply to the site of the former Merrow mill, which began as a gunpowder mill in 1811. After several explosions, the Merrows turned to a safer product, knitted underwear. The mill burned down in 1887, but the mill workers' houses remain along Merrow Road in Mansfield.
As you walk upstream, you will hear water tumbling over rocks where the river curves away toward the east side of the valley. Soon the trail enters a dry sandy terrace with towering white pines mixed with hickory and oak trees. Laurel and blueberry line the trail. A bench under the pines offers a peaceful spot to sit and listen to the wind rustling in the trees. (The numbered posts will be used with a future interpretative brochure.)
The valley is wider here, and the river is divided into a braided pattern of narrow channels and low islands. The main river channel is now on the far (east) side of the valley, so the trail leads through ferns alongside one of the narrow channels and then crosses it on a footbridge. Road sand running off Riverside Drive is gradually filling in this channel and smothering the organisms on the bottom. A recent town project to capture the sand at the roadside storm drain will help keep out additional sediments and allow the streambed to re-establish its natural state.
Beyond the bridge, the trail leaves the braided area and again follows the bank of the main river channel, which has curved back to the west side of the valley. At a bench under the maple trees, there is a scenic view up the river, where you may see ducks feeding or a great blue heron fly by. You can also see the river at work, as it gradually wears away the bank by the bench to expose tree roots on the outside of the bend, and deposits sand and gravel (carried from upstream) onto the bank across the river on the inside of the bend. As the bank you are sitting on gives way and the opposite bank advances, the river is slowly carving its way toward the west side of the valley floor.
By this bench, the river runs noisily over cobble-sized rocks. Just upstream is a smooth-as-glass pool over a deeper bottom, then another rocky riffle beyond. This is the river's natural sequence of pool, riffle, pool, riffle. Trout prefer such a habitat, where agitation in the riffles adds oxygen to the water, and pools offer a cool hide-out on warm summer days. If you enjoy trout fishing, this is a good spot to try.
The trail continues upstream through ferns along the bank. Watch for muskrat tunnels underfoot and signs of former beaver activity. After the trail crosses a bridge, it enters another dry piney terrace, where the last bench marks the current end of the trail and offers a tantalizing view of the next bend. One hopes the trail will soon be extended to reveal whatever awaits around that bend. For now, you can return to the parking lot along the trail.
This trail is part of the Willimantic River Greenway's midriver trail system. Take a longer walk on the Greenway's multi-town trail.