A Weekend in the New Forest

Catching the train from Waterloo

We did try to catch the 10:30am train from Waterloo but didn’t quite manage, so the 11am had to do. We’d never taken our bikes on the train before but it was quite straightforward, they go in the guard van and have a rack. There is only space for 5 bikes though. The train itself was quite new and nice, which if you are familiar with British trains is quite a compliment. It was a reasonably express service I suppose which helps - the local services are like 1950’s buses in Perth, with vinyl seats!

Brockenhurst to Lyndhurst

So an hour and a half later we arrived in Brockenhurst, the centre of the New Forest. It might sound odd but there are trains, roads, and towns in the New Forest. It’s not exactly what an Australian is expecting, but they do things differently over here!

The new Forest was established about 1100AD with certain rules about who could graze their cows, horses etc there, and what amount of logging and clearing could be done. These rules have protected it a great deal from the intensive clearing and farming that has happened elsewhere. All to preserve it as a hunting ground for the English kings. Now, about half of it is forest, a bit more is heathlands, and there are some villages.

We hired Christy a bike and set off through the tiny village of Brockenhurst to make our way to Lyndhurst where we were staying that night. Up the main road it was about 8km, but we wanted to avoid that so took a longer route of about 16km. Fortunately I didn’t tell Christy about that tradeoff or we might never have started :-).

Brockenhurst was gorgeous. Quiet and small, with lots of old houses, the kind you see on English postcards. Flowers out, ivy, and it was even quite sunny, a lovely day all up. And when we got to the edge of the village, we got our first surprise - horses grazing on median strips and in the fields! People with certain rights can graze their animals all over the New Forest and everywhere you go you find horses, ponys, donkeys, cows, and sheep - on the heath, in the fields, and in the towns! I suppose this is what India is like with its cows.

After taking the obligatory photos we rode on. The scenery was glorious - open heath, madly flowering gorse bushes everywhere. After the constrictions of London it was fabulous to get to a “wide open space”!!

We finally make it to Lyndhurst and the B & B, which turned out to be very nice. We had missed lunch and were too early for tea so we collapsed on the bed and tried to recover. Then we headed out for the pub dinner which we’d been dreaming about the whole trip.

Lyndhurst was about twice or three times the size of Brockenhurst, and the level of traffic through the town was incredible. It was like every one from London had decided to come down with us. The through traffic is so constant this route virtually couldn’t be crossed on foot at any time of day or night without resorting to the pedestrain crossing. It makes you realise what it means to “live on tourism” - constant traffic and a B & B every 50 metres!

A walk in the woods and goodbye to Christy

Sunday wasn’t nearly so nice weather-wise, but we decided to go for a walk in the Forest. We headed back along the same route as the day before. At the moment large tracts of the forest are actually closed because of foot and mouth. Not to say there is any foot and mouth there, it is just all precautions. About half the park was totally closed (except for roads), and the other half (the half we were were in) was open for walkers, but the paths were closed to cyclists. This was ok since we weren’t after mountain biking, we stuck to the little roads. The walking was lovely, and the park was full of families pickicking and so forth.

We split up from Chris and she returned to Brockenhurst to go back to London. She made it back ok which she was very pleased about. We meanwhile headed back to Lyndhurst and stopped in a local pub on the way, called The Swan. We only had a beer but Fabian was sure it was a “Gastro-pub” - the kind of country pub that starts to put on better food and attracts clientele for miles around because of it. I personally think it would be a doubled edged sword if your local improved its food, but was then constantly full of people from the big city…

To Exbury gardens and then to home

The Monday dawned bright and clear, first time I have EVER seen that in the UK. After having our second hot breakfast in two days (the English cannot do bacon, even Fabian opted for the vegetarian!) we headed off the other way, to a small town called Beaulieu. This town looked reachable for unfit cyclists and also had a motor museum.

The sunshine was fabulous and we careered through open heath. The whole area is relatively flat, only small hills and dips occasionally so even with fully loaded bikes (our luggage!) it wasn’t hard. There was a lot of livestock on the road today, too! We made it to Beaulieu in about 45 minutes, much quicker than we expected.

We passed on the National motor museum and the local Palace (sorry Dad but I did take some photos). We decided to head on to Exbury gardens, about 4km away. And we were glad we did, even though we started with an enormous hill.

The gardens were very busy on this sunny day. We had a quick scones and tea in the (obligatory) tea house and then headed in. I was already swooning over the purple rhododendrons at the entrance! The gardens inside were fabulous (even Fabian thought so!).

A huge area, we only briefly saw half of it, and the flowers in season were the azaleas and rhododendrons. They were magnificent - the rhododendrons were like small trees, covered in huge blooms of flowers, blue and purple! peach, pink, white, orange, yellow, red. And the azaleas were in massive sprays everywhere, bright pink, red.

We spent 2 hours wandering in the sunshine, drinking it in. It was fantastic. I’d definitely like to go back again over the season and see other flowers, like roses, and then the autumn trees. Much better than an old mansion we thought.

Finally headed back the way we came and stopped for lunch in an old pub. It had good food but was very busy so we spent one and a half hours there but only ate for about 20 minutes (figure out how long we had to wait…). That’s a public holiday for you! We did feel very virtuous though, cycling does justify all those chips compared to people who didn’t lift anything more than the accelerator pedal to get there…

Back to Brockenhurst in 45 minutes, perfect timing for the 4:30 train. Snoozed on the train then off at Waterloo and rode home. All up about 35km today (not totally sure because the bike computer played up). Not bad for a gentle weekend out! And this was our first “touring” attempt in the UK, so we were pretty chuffed to have actually done it. Now we know how easy it is to put bikes on trains, book somewhere (tip: ring the local tourist bureau to get a list of B & B’s - they often know which ones are not full!) and go!

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