Sterling is the Massachusetts town where Mary had a little lamb, and the town knows it. In the early nineteenth century a girl named Mary Sawyer is said to have carried a pet lamb to school, and the poem that followed has made the village a minor place of pilgrimage, with a lamb statue standing in the centre. Beyond the nursery rhyme, Sterling is a quiet, comfortable farm and commuter town of about seven thousand people, set among rolling hills and orchards on the eastern side of the Wachusett Mountain country, with South Lancaster a short ride to the east.
The roads are what bring a rider. Route 62 and Route 12 wander between stone walls, farm stands, old barns and white clapboard houses, over gentle hills, with views of Wachusett Mountain rising to the west. The back roads, with names like Chocksett and Meetinghouse Hill, twist through woods and meadows, with the surface patched and rough in places, and frost heaves in spring. Traffic is light on weekdays, with a few tractors and cyclists, and heavier at weekends in autumn when visitors come for the foliage and the apple orchards. Early morning mist hangs low over the fields, and the light is soft and golden.
Water shapes this region. The Wachusett Reservoir, completed in 1908 to supply Boston, lies just to the south and east, and it flooded several villages in nearby towns, a loss still remembered in local history. The reservoir is surrounded by protected forest, and walking along its edges, you can see bald eagles and loons. The area has long been farming country, and old family orchards still sell apples, cider and doughnuts in the autumn.
Wachusett Mountain, a short ride away in Princeton, rises to a little over six hundred metres and is a popular spot for hiking and skiing, with a summit road that is open in summer and autumn. The views from the top stretch across central Massachusetts to the Boston skyline on a clear day, and in autumn thousands of hawks pass overhead on their migration south. The forests are a mix of oak, maple, pine and hemlock, and the soil is rocky and thin, scoured by glaciers.
Fuel and food are available along Route 12 and in the town centre. Pack a layer for the morning chill, watch for deer, and stop at a farm stand for cider doughnuts if the season is right.