Exploring :: Northumberland #3 ... Alnwick Tree House & The Garden Winter Light Trail

Hi there everyone 😀

We are back to our big day out in Northumberland for today's post. 

Continuing with our Monday road trip ... having already taken in Beadnell, Craster and Alnmouth ... we were finally at our last stop in Alnwick.

We were booked in to eat at The Tree House and then we had tickets for the Alnwick Garden Winter Light Trail and we were all really excited. Martin and I had been to The Tree House before, but that didn't make it any less special and for Lesley and Tom it was all new ...

It just looked totally magical ...

The fairy lights were just starting to twinkle as we made our way along the wooden walkway to the restaurant ...

Once inside it was even prettier ... with lots of wood, plenty of twinkling lights and a roaring log fire ... it was also lovely and quiet ...

We had a lovely meal and by the time we were ready to leave to head to the garden it was properly dark and even more twinkly ...

It was only a short walk to the entrance of the garden and we were soon in and ready for our last adventure of what had been a lovely day ...

The light trail was really well laid out, with no real clue as to what would be coming next so there was a real sense of anticipation as to what we might find around the next corner ...

... and there were certainly plenty of oohs and ahhhs going on ...

Through our meanderings through the bamboo and tree lined paths we ended up in the walled garden ...

... before heading down to the sycamore tree ... which really reminded me of the tree of life in Avatar ...

We headed back up to the top of the garden ...

... before making our way down through the cherry trees ...

...which was hard going on the creaky knees, but at least we got to have a sit down at the bottom ...

We were on the home straight now ...

There was the just grand finale to go ... which did not disappoint ...

Oh ... I beg your pardon ... there was just one more thing 😂😂😂

We were so lucky to get to see the gardens ... when we'd tried to book on line there were no tickets available, but when we called about something else, the kind lady managed to squeeze us in. If we'd left it until the following day we would have been out of luck as the gardens had to close as a result of Storm Barra heading in.

What a day we'd had ... we were all shattered and just about ready to head back to Cuthbert's cottage for the rest of the evening, but we did make just one more stop on the way.

It was a lovely clear night so we pulled in alongside the road in Seahouses, by the coast, for a spot of stargazing and whilst there was plenty to see it wasn't really that photographable ... but those dark clear skies really do show how many stars there are actually up there.

We finally headed back to the comfort of Cuthbert's Cottage to see what Storm Barra would have in store for us on Tuesday 😀

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