Circling a lightly snowed Kew Gardens

I was not going to let a light dusting of snow stop me going for one of my regular Sunday morning walks through Kew Gardens though the frequent rain meant that it was safer, and much quicker, to keep to the main paths rather than tromping along the grassy vistas.

I had done all of the glasshouses and the treetop walkway a few times on recent visits so this time I chose to go for a walk around the perimeter without detouring or pausing to see any of the main attractions. Out of curiosity I used MapMyWalk to see how far around it was and it came to just over 5km, which is what I measured it as last time I did this.

The map suggests that I did not stick to the perimeter and that is partially true as the paths do not follow it all the way around, especially in the north-west corner where it runs south of Kew Palace but the main reason is that the map is misleading and the green section at the north extends beyond Kew Gardens to Kew Green.

Following the main path meant that there was not that much to see (apart from all the trees, of course)  as all the main attractions are deliberately better placed away from the edge but I was very pleased to spot these three small snowmen. With so little snow around I was impressed that anybody had managed to make anything at all from it.

I took the usual break on the walk and went into the Orangery for the mandatory coffee and a slice of cake. My first choice would have been Bakewell Tart, my usual treat there, but there was none on offer so I had to settle for Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, which did the trick nicely.

On my way back to Lion Gate I walked around the imaginatively named Woodland Garden, the mound near to Victoria Gate that has the Temple of Aeolus on it, and saw the early daffodils that I knew were in the garden somewhere. There were a few other flowers out my knowledge of such things is so poor that I do not know whether they were meant to be out in the middle of January or not. I suspect that the Snowdrops were in season but the the Camellias were premature.

Not the best of weathers and not the prettiest of seasons to explore a garden and still I had a very enjoyable walk and saw some interesting things along the way.