It is always nice to visit the arboretum at Thorpe Perrow near Bedale, no matter what time of year, and today was no different.

We arrived at around 10.30am, I went for a stroll under the Horse Chestnut trees close to the entrance and car park area to collect a handful of fallen conkers for the grandchildren. I was pleasantly surprised as to how many visitors were arriving considering we are still a week away from the children’s half term holiday, that aside the arboretum is also a popular meeting spot for young mums, dads and babies in pushchairs, the paths are flat and level, there are toilets at the entrance and a nice café, everything you need for a nice day out.

We stopped at the café for a takeaway coffee before making our way around the Arboretum. One of the nice things about visiting this time of year is the variety of colour amongst all the trees, with such a variety of different types of trees the colour spectrum is quite wide and colourful, even though today was quite dull and overcast there was still plenty of beautiful autumnal colours to see.

As well as coming for a nice walk with Meg and Gacie, there is also a very good ‘Halloween Trail’ to follow (which runs from 7^th October – 5^th November,) trail sheets can be collected from the café shop to guide you along the trail, with a small gift for completed trail sheets. We have been coming to Thorpe Perrow for several years and the Halloween Trail gets better every year.

We started our walk from the coffee shop and followed the stream for a couple of hundred yards till we found the ‘Trail sign’ for the start of the ‘Halloween Trail’. We passed numerous ghosts suspended in the trees, accompanied with skeletons, coffins and huge spiders. The skeleton sat upright in the pet’s graveyard was quite startling, followed shortly after by the skeletal wedding with accompanying skeletal dog. The flying academy was good with a coven of witches crowded around a campfire. Crossing over the wooden footbridge just before entering the Milbank Pinetum is always a good spot to stop and admire the view looking towards the ‘Catherine Parr Oak’ in the distance, no matter what time of year. Just below us and waist deep in water was a Gruffalo character with a pot full of skeletal remains, we passed a pair of skeletal gardeners cutting and raking the grass. A little further on was a pumpkin scarecrow selling his whares, a little further on was a pair of skeletons accompanied by their skeletal cat at the dining table being watered on by a skeletal butler. Several skeletons were out camping accompanied with their pets. We left the trail at that point and made our way to the ‘Cathreine Parr Oak’ where we sat and had a rest for five minutes, by which time the sun had started to breakthrough the cloudy sky. We continued our walk towards the monument, the views through some of the terraces were beautiful, the sunlight picking out huge swathes of golden and yellow colours with the leaves changing colour as they prepare for the colder winter months ahead. We had another rest at the monument to admire the views down the ‘Main Avenue’ looking towards the house. It only seems five minutes ago when we visited in March and the entire area was covered in Daffodils. From the Monument it is just a steady five minutes’ walk back to the café, where we enjoyed a very pleasant sandwich and pot of tea before the journey home.