It was bitterly cold last night and just as cold first thing this morning. The temperature gauge in the garden was showing -3C at 6.30am as I set of with Meg and Gracie on our morning walk. Albeit very cold it was a lovely morning, fresh, dry and more importantly firm underfoot. Although the full moon was last Sunday the sky was clear and the moon shining bright on even the darkest areas on the Barff this morning, it was a great morning’s dog walk.

The weather forecast was good for the day today, cold, dry and bright, so after breakfast we packed the car, dogs and camera gear and drove up to the Arboretum at Thorpe Perrow on the outskirts of Bedale in North Yorkshire. 

We left home at 9.30am and the cars temperature gauge was showing -1C, warming up to 0C by the time we arrived at 10.30am. It was nice to get out of the car and stretch the legs, the sun had come out and there was a beautiful blue sky. The dogs love it here as they can have a good run around albeit to the limits of an extendable leash, although there were a few cars in the car park it was very quiet as we walked around the arboretum that said the area covers 100 acres so there is plenty of space to explore.

After leaving the warmth and comfort of the visitors centre we followed the trail over the dried up stream and turned right, following the trail past the children’s play area on the left onto the ‘water steps path’ keeping the stream on the right hand side passing the pet cemetery on the left and ‘Henry’s island’ on the right. The stream opens up here into the lake, today though the lake was covered in a thin layer of ice. Under the trees large clumps of Snowdrops are coming into flower forming huge blankets under the cover of the trees. There are some twenty four different varieties of Snowdrop in the Arboretum and it will be worth coming back in a week or so’s time to see them in their full glory. We continued our walk alongside the lake, passing ‘Fern Avenue’ on the left, stopping for a few moments to take some photographs of the house opposite, a little further along the trail we walked over to ‘Kates’s island’ to admire the bright red Cornus (Dogwood) shrubs surrounding the island. After a few moments rest we continued walking alongside the lake and into the ‘Milbank Pinetium’ admiring the huge Pine trees which were brought in from North America and planted in the 1840’s.  We took a slight detour here as the ground staff were carrying out some maintenance work on one of the footpaths, from our detour we arrived at the Bird of Prey Centre. From here we walked through the ‘Dell’ onto ‘Birch Avenue’ to the huge Jubilee Oak, planted in 1935 to mark the Silver Jubilee of King George V, a fine looking tree, even in winter. We continued along the ‘Millennium walk’ to the ‘Catherine Parr Oak’ another superb looking tree, from here we headed back into the Arboretum passing the ponds on the left hand side till we came to the Acorn Sculpture and Butterfly garden, the Pampas bushes looking resplendent in the morning sunlight. It is just a short walk along ‘Annabel’s walk’ to the ‘Fern Avenue’ and onto the ‘Main Avenue’ to the Monument, built to commemorate the life of Sir Leonard Ropner. After a couple of photographs we headed back down the ‘Main Avenue’ to the ‘Acer Glade’ from where it is just a short walk back to the visitors centre and café, where we enjoyed a very pleasant brunch, the homemade soup was delicious. Care had to be taken on the drive home as several of the smaller roads were still quite icy, fortunately by the time we reached the A1 they were all clear and we had an uneventful and safe drive home.