Tag: new-forest-ponies

New Forest – UK – 2025 – Day 3

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Well! actually I’ll stat on Day 2 evening. We had an absolutely splendid meal at The Royal Oak HillTops, Beaulieu…. It’s a quaint, quirky pub/ restaurant.

On arriving we were greeted warmly by the lady who both waitresses and ran the bar. She seated us at a really nice table, gave us menus and pointed out the specials board. I took a photo of the specials board…a little trick my sister taught me to save everyone getting up to look…..

The menu was extensive and there was nothing on it or the specials board which cost more than £19.99…..what a pleasure so many places now charge the earth for just mediocre food. We all found something we fancied. I had the pheasant from the specials board. It was absolutely delicious, the mash was properly freshly home cooked and the pheasants breast very tasty and tender…pheasant legs are always more for decoration than eating and this one was no exception it had obviously walked a long way 🤣…a perfect meal leaving some wonderful tastes in my mouth …yummmy

Dad had his favourite Sea Bass with smashed potatoes and samphire, followed by ice cream.

John had Beef cooked in Guinness with a dumpling, parsnips, mash and carrots…followed by a large ice cream.

An absolutely great meal, with superb service…even with drinks the bill was only £81.00, very reasonable for what we had…needless to say we’ve booked again for tonight. It is only a 10 minute drive from our hotel.

Day 3

We started the day with a very similar continental breakfast to the previous day. The only difference was I asked them to make the coffee much stronger…this time at least I could taste that it was coffee…scoring it 6/10, John gave it a 7/10 and Dad a 5/10…. To be honest the beans blend was not too our liking they were very bitter…we prefer pure Costa Rica coffee beans which is strong, powerful and doesn’t leave you with a bitter taste like cheaper coffee beans and blends do …..yes we are coffee snobs🤣🤣

We set off to Hythe Marina, another favourite haunt of ours and one which Mum and Dad introduced us too. On the way we saw a couple of deer.

On arriving at The Marina John and I got out of the car and I took a very bracing walk along the promenade…..it was bitter and I had to jog back fearing that my watering eyes might freeze on my cheeks….

John took a variety of pictures ..

Dad very sensibly stayed in the car…it was 1 degrees Celsius….a tad chilly.

We carried on to Calshot …another favourite “walk down memory lane” for me….when I was 18 I had spent three weeks at the activity centre before going off to college. The first week I had been taught the basic skills in a variety of activities..cycling in a velodrome, skiing on a dry ski slope, rock climbing on a wall, canoeing/kayaking, skating etc…then the following two weeks I had been a carer/ mentor/ coach and general dogs body for 2 different groups of disabled children….i still remember my fear as I taught a blind boy to rock climbing and took a wheelchair bound girl in a sledge down the ski slope, they loved it but I was petrified …I bottled the velodrome because I couldn’t peddle fast enough to stop the bike slipping down the wall, I’ve never been any good on a bike….but I was a superstar on the skates safely taking my protégés around and I managed the kayaks without drowning anyone🤣🤣🤣 They were days I shall always remember with immense fondness and consequently Calshot spit holds a special place in my heart…..but today it was cold and inhospitable and non of us ventured out of the car.

Driving back along the Spit we saw an egret in the stream

We drove back along the Lepe waterfront, past the lighthouse.

Having picked up petrol and sandwiches we headed for Horseshoe Bottom carpark. Today we had all the correct components to make coffee. We ate our sandwiches in the car, snug and warm, while watching the ponies, dog walkers, riders and generally just enjoying my mums special place and a little Robin kept us entertained …

After a nice relaxation, people, pony and robin watching we headed on towards Nomansland…another quirky village at the edge of the forest. We past by many New Forest Ponies and some Shetland Ponies and of course the off spring of The Grey Stallion.

It’s a lot more foresty than moorland on this side of the forest.

Whilst going through one of the picturesque villages we came across a group of donkeys…they are the first we have seen this trip. This is unusual as we usually see a lot. But we are later visiting this year and during the winter many of them are taken into farms for protection.

We were just commenting that we were unlikely to see any free roaming pigs at this time of year, because the pannage was over – that is when the pigs are let out free roaming so they can eat the acorns which are poisonous to the ponies – Then suddenly walking down the edge of the road was a massive pig…

Wow! now the only thing we haven’t seen, which we usually do is free roaming cows…We headed back to our hotel. Parking up we were about to return to our rooms when we caught sight of 4/5 cows just coming out of the wooded area opposite the hotel…

…Our checklist was complete…we can rest up in peace. This evening we are going back to the Royal Oak, I’ll blog about it tomorrow. Tomorrow we are returning home…it is also our 11th Wedding Anniversary…

New Forest – Day 5 – October 1st 2024

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Yesterday we visited our relations who live in the area and joined them for coffee. It’s hard to say the exact relationship and I fear my sister will correct me because I am bound to be wrong…but I think…my mothers maternal grandmothers sisters child’s, child …I might have missed a generation out but they’ve always been known as Cousin Simon and Sheila to me and Simon is the son of Great Aunty Lily…although I don’t think she was an aunt, I think she was perhaps my grandmothers younger cousin !!!!! Regardless, they’ve always been family and it was lovely catching up with them…thank you for the coffee.
Today we headed off into the forest…a grey day with the sun occasionally breaking through, and thankfully no rain. We went through Sway to Horseshoe Bottom Carpark. Where we sat and enjoyed the views… plenty of horses….. there was also a man wandering about with a takeaway coffee..what a strange thing to do we thought. He kept bending and picking things up from the short grass, occasionally kneeling and once or twice sitting and still picking things up and putting in his pocket…..we watched him for some time. A car pulled up further along from us and a couple of men, father and son age, alighted. We were interested to see that they strapped a two wheeled contraption on to one of their dogs and we soon realised the dog didn’t have the use of its hind legs….. they set off across the grassland for a walk ….they stopped at the other strange man and conversed …out of his pocket came another open coffee cup and he showed the newcomers what he had been collecting… They all moved off and ‘curiosity was killing the cat’ , so I hopped out of the car and went to see what the man had been picking up….tiny mushrooms…I suspect magic mushrooms …my Miss Marple’s sleuthing had it all worked out!!! I was pleased when a New Forest Parks van pulled in and he disappeared..after all he was corrupting this sacred place where nature, heaven and earth are all at peace. We had coffee. Enjoyed watching the ponies and dog walkers traversing this area of outstanding beauty.

We decided to go deeper into the forest and continued on new routes until we crossed under the A31 again and headed towards Bramshaw . This time we didn’t see any pigs. Although we did see a lot of ponies and we went through some great villages with shops, the names of which really appealed to me !!! We stopped for our lunch and watched a pair of Wagtails and some Meadow Pipits playing in the puddles.

Deciding we would head for home we turned down another very narrow lane in the direction of Nomansland…. What a wonderful surprise …firstly a pig with two piglets and then another huge pig…as we went around the blind bend there in the road were about 10 really young pink piglets and their sows foraging in the hedgerow. Beyond them was a herd of donkeys blocking the road……what a lovely sight. As we could go nowhere, due to the road block , we spent several minutes watching and enjoying these animals freely eating and snuffling and grunting…it was superb.

We eventually had to move as the livestock moved onto the verges. Our return continued and we took the beautiful route past the Rhinefield Hotel and back through Brockenhurst….John got his train ‘fix’ as we waited at the level-crossing.

We got back to the house in time to put the supper in the oven. Another really lovely peaceful day, we saw 223 ponies wandering freely and 5 with riders …….Nature at its very finest.