Since I began my quest I have discovered, not unsurprisingly, that many other people around the World share my love for Monkey Puzzle Trees. Thanks to the incredible work of Sarah Horton who created and manages the Monkey Map, we now have a common place where we can 'register' our finds. This catalogue gives every single Monkey Puzzle Tree a label based on the UK postcode area where it is located and means that whenever a tree is discovered it can easily be cross checked by us enthusiasts to see if it is indeed a ‘new’ tree that we've found. Recently Sarah announced a postcode challenge encouraging people to try and find at least one Monkey Puzzle Tree in any of the 19 areas that still hadn't had a single tree spotted.
With this is in mind I spent a rather productive afternoon trawling the internet looking for possible trees in the Uxbridge post code (UB) area as it is reasonably close to where I live. I managed to locate 2 trees but also stumbled across one in the Luton (LU) area which also needed a tree. As that weekend promised glorious winter sun me & Nathalie decided to spend a day in the country near Dunstable looking for the LU tree (a country pub lunch being the final convincer) with the plan being to spot the 2 UB trees on the way home. As we were heading out to Dunstable I thought it might be worth seeing if I could find any other trees in the area and to my surprise I came across a place just outside Leighton Buzzard called Knolls Wood, which promised an avenue of Monkey Puzzle Trees, something I have never had the pleasure of seeing for real!
Saturday was indeed a beautiful day and we were soon turning off the M1 and heading into the LU postcode hunting ground. Before we even reached any of the tress we were heading for we manage to spot 2 trees in West Dunstable.
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| West Dunstable (LU3) |
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| West Dunstable (LU4) |
I am still in awe at what we saw at Knolls Wood. First we were greeted by a housing estate built amongst huge Redwoods that had been planted at the same time as the Monkey Puzzle avenue. The avenue itself exceeded all my expectations and I will be posting my account with pictures in my next post very soon. All I will say for now is that we counted 78 trees from huge 100+ year old specimens to tiny new trees that looked liked they had grown from the larger trees seeds. Unfortunately for the Monkey Map we were not really properly equipped to catalogue the trees accurately so we plan to return when the days are longer to record all the trees there properly! This link shows a small part of the the avenue in 3D - 3D Photo From Knolls Wood.
On the way to finding the other tree in Eggington we knew about we managed to spot another one on the other side of the village. Then to my surprise the huge tree we knew about turned out to have a smaller sibling growing in its shadow. Finally LU gave us one more tree as we headed off to find a pub for dinner! Since the trip I have read that Luton Hoo hotel apparently has a Monkey Puzzle Tree avenue as well so it would seem LU is in fact a very good postcode for a monkey Puzzle Tree hunter!
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| Eggington 1 (LU5) |
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| Eggington 2 (LU1) |
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| Eggington 3 (LU2) |
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| Stanbridge (LU6) |
A quick search on Google came up with a promising pub in Sarratt called The Cricketters that I had vague recollections of as I grew up not that far way, so we headed off for a well deserved dinner. Unbelievably before we even reached the pub we spotted another huge tree.
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| Sarratt (WD11) |
Having had a As the sun was beginning to set we finally arrived in Uxbridge & Greenford where we managed to find the two trees in the UB postcode we had hoped to see. Both quite impressive trees with the Uxbridge one having a lovely position at the front between two houses, where hopefully it will never be an issue regarding blocking off light, something I am beginning to realise is the cause of many Monkey Puzzle Trees's demise.
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| Greenford (UB1) |
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| Uxbridge (UB2) |
So all in all it was an incredible day of Monkey Puzzle Tree spotting thanks to out trusty van Geoff and Nathalie's shared enthusiasm for spotting Monkey Puzzle Trees (& a day out in the country with a pub lunch thrown in).
Monkey Puzzle Trees Seen - 79 Monkey Puzzle Trees Yet To See - 15
