We went to Gibside at the beginning of October. The weather was still
quite warm, so we decided to do one of the longer walks. (There were 4 to
choose from.) To get in is about £9, so not too expensive and once inside, we
headed off on our walk, beginning with the gardens. There were lots of little
apple trees – I was on the lookout for more conkers after an
incident with a spider earlier in the week. I took some photos in the orangery, and then we stopped off at the stables.
We trekked up through the woods, breaking off
from the other routes, so it was a bit quieter. There were cows in the next field, which I was a bit wary of – one walked
in front of us, blocking our way. After navigating past the cows, we crossed a
stile and headed along a quiet road before re-entering the woods. I made the most
of the quiet and took some photos and found some chestnuts.
At the end of the forest route, Liberty’s Column came into view, and we made
our way over passing ‘Octagon Lake’ on the way. There was an avenue of trees towards the end of the walk, but they were
nearly all oak trees so I gave up looking for conkers. We had a quick look
around the markets that were on before we headed for the exit. As we were
leaving, we found a lone conker tree - but I only managed to get one as they
were all still high up. It's currently sitting on my fireplace at
home to scare away spiders.
