Getting lost in the woods at Allestree Park

One thing about walking through woods, particularly at this time of year, is that they're all different.


We were trying to find a new route at Allestree park, hoping to follow the purple path as seen on this map, photographed from a sign board in the car park, but we got lost!







The old hall - a brown rectangle on the map - was easy enough to find further up the drive, but from there we followed the wrong path and had no idea where we were heading.
A dog walker recommended following a path through the beech woods that border the golf course, so we went that way hoping to eventually meet our intended route - we did, but not at all as we expected. Instead of heading for the park boundary at the top of the map, we were going off the to left!









The woods were very interesting and pretty though.

A lot of the trees are strangely twisted and warped, looking like something out of a fairy tale or horror story. I'd guess, though, that once, long ago, they were part of a laid hedge which has over time grown wild.

I'm not sure I'd like to encounter them for the first time at night; they could be quite scary.

There are lots of beech trees here with leaves already falling to cover the ground, although those remaining aren't wholly turned golden yet.






















I've noticed back in the summer that there seems to be more fungi here than in, say, our local wood, and being autumn there were lots to be seen.

From a distance I thought this was a vast spreading of mushrooms, so I went off the path to investigate - and found hundreds of crab apples.

At this point we'd been slithering down a hillside following a muddy path which led us out on to the golf course and one of its gravel paths. Remember we were looking for the purple path? Well, after a little while, we found a purple marker with an arrow, then another, and another. Obviously we were back somewhere on the proper route, just not where we imagined. Before long we were back at the spot by the hall where we'd obviously gone the wrong way. The markers are only noticeable from one direction, and we'd tried to walk the path 'backwards'.
Argh. At least we found the car again.