New Forest

We really liked the idea of staying in the New Forest. We envisaged staying in a little B and B amongst the trees with lots of walking trails around. When we got to Lyndhurst where we were staying it appeared the house was in a traffic island in what appears to be the busiest village in all of England.

Apparently they were in the process of building a ring road so the traffic would avoid the town before the war but it got put on hold and now the 'tofffs' in town have managed to get it shelved. So it is now on major route for all traffic going north and south through this area but there are lots of lovely old buildings in the town.

The New Forest has a long and proud history that dates back almost 1,000 years. It takes its name from the latin nova foresta, which translates literally as ‘new hunting ground’, although hunting had been going on in the area long before this time.

Since its creation by King William the Conqueror in 1079 for the pursuit of the ‘beasts of the chase’ – red, roe and fallow deer and wild pig – many historical events and influences have shaped the landscape and cultural heritage of the New Forest.

We decided Geoff needed to see the doctor today as he had coughed all night. It was a bit of a rigmarole to get them to see us and we had to pay cash. Hopefully we can get the money back from Medicare as Australia has a reciprocal relationship with NHS n the UK.

We had a wander around Lyndhurst and saw where Arthur Phillip had farmed and had learnt about farming.

After lunch we went for a long walk in the surrounding forest.

All the trees were the same height from the ground as the wild ponies and deer keep them all trimmed.

 

 

Geoff was using an OS map on his IPAD and it didn't seem to work very well and we got rather lost. But we were assisted by some dog walkers and eventually got back to where we were staying

For tea we went to the Waterloo which is an amazing 17 th century pub.