Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park

After a day of preparing for my up and coming trip to Bahrain, reloading software, ready for the training courses I will give there in NLP, PhotoReading, Mind Maps and two courses for over forty kids, I needed a break and a long walk.

Near to my home in Kingston upon Thames is Richmond Park. My last walk in the park, (click here to read), was last November, with the leaves turning lovely colours of browns, orange and yellows, and it was cold. Today, it was sunny and hot, and the Royal Park was the place to go.

It was a time to explore, as the quietness of the park was only broken by the rat-tat-tatting of a woodpecker, the birds singing their songs, and the occasional plane taking off from Heathrow racing into the sky.

I knew that there was somewhere in the park some small lakes, but I had never visited them, so like an explorer, I set out into uncharted grounds, OK, following some little used footpath into the center of the park.

It was then that I came across Isabella Plantation. (Watch video). I had never heard of the area, a wooded and fenced off area of some 17 hectares. It was enclosed in 1831, when most of the oak, beech and sweet chestnut trees were planted.

In and around 1950, a garden was started and continues to be worked upon, containing heathers, rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolias and camellias, set between the mature trees and little streams of water.

                        

                        

                       

                                

At various points in Isabella’s Plantation the streams entered little ponds of water. Swimming there were many ducks and coots, and the colourful Mandarin ducks.

On the walk home a herd of deer (no sick ones) relaxed.

A wonderful walk, to empty my mind ready for the flight to Bahrain.