THURSDAY 6th MARCH See Regional Rambles page for details
Reccy for Regional Ramble:
On the first nice day for what seems weeks we decided to bite the bullet and get out on the scooters to do a reccy in the New Forest. It is totally waterlogged at present, but most of the tracks are passable and we stuck, in the main to these trails, we did a little “off piste” work, which was great fun – but took great care because under the layer of leaves laying on the ground are all sorts of snags!
It was mostly in my local Inclosure, but we did manage to go down a muddy path that is off the beaten track and leads into the open Forest, it is really lovely down this particular trail and gives you that lovely feeling of wanting to explore a bit more. This lead us onto the main A35 Lyndhurst road where we got onto the cycle path running alongside the road until we reached the next port of call – this in summer is a New Forest campsite, Ashurst campsite and full up with tents and caravans, but at this time of year is just used by us locals for taking the kids on their bikes, disabled scooterists (us), and dog walkers. It is a lovely site with plenty of species of birds and there was also lots of lake-like puddles as you can see in the photos! You can now appreciate what length, and depths, we go to to ensure we put on a nice ramble for our members! Lots of fun was had by all. The day before this, last Saturday 1st February, on another trip through the Forest we were lucky to see a male hen harrier quartering the heathland – it was such a pleasure to see and not something you see very often, so we felt very privileged. This reccy now means that there is a nice 8/9 mile ramble available in early March for some of us Southerners to go on, weather permitting of course.
In the photos, the New Forest ponies were waiting for their hay outside the Keepers Cottage which you can see in the background, there were about 8 of them altogether and we had to pass through the middle of them, but they were just curious and very well behaved, much to my relief. They are fed this time of year to help them through the last part of the winter and at the moment they all look very well, but by Spring they often look a little slim! A super day in the magical New Forest.
Best wishes to all
Val