Our last day before we head home tomorrow. It’s a glorious sunny day with clear blue skies and chilly at only eight degrees but it’s a lovely change.

We’re heading to a campsite in Bardon Mill about halfway to home. On the way we stop at a National Trust property Wallington a 13,500-acre estate of house, park, gardens and farmland.

Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan, a Labour MP, gifted the large estate to the NT in 1942 but members of the family lived here until 2013.

The clock tower dominates the courtyard currently in use as a garden shop, NT shop and cafe.

It’s a lovely house filled with treasures which we enjoy wandering around and admiring.

The atrium’s walls, the social hub of the house back in the day are covered in flowers and murals.

A room filled with doll’s houses and toy soldier armies fighting the battle of Waterloo is oddly interesting too.

After our tour of the house we wander through the extensive grounds and lakes and visit the walled gardens and the portico walk. There are beautiful wooden sculptures made from fallen trees around the gardens.

A welcome bit of lunch and a cuppa sitting outside in the sunny courtyard before buying a metal sculpture for our garden and our third and final fridge magnet.

Off to Bardon Mill and a very pretty spot for our campsite. On the way we spot The Sycamore Gap tree made famous by Robin Hood movie. There’s a flock of mainly brown and white spotted Jacob sheep onsite. Jeffrey the campsite owner gifts us half a dozen eggs from his hens and we watch him train Ruby his sheepdog control the small flock of sheep.

Early evening we walk into Bardon Mill. After a nose around the local pottery we enjoy drinks and dinner at The Bowes Hotel before walking back to the van in the dark with a cloudless sky showing us the alignment of five planets. We saw Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Mars but couldn’t see Uranus. A marvelous end to our trip.

27:03:23

Home today. It’s raining so it makes it a lot easier to leave.

28:03:23