On Thursday we woke up to sunshine and decided to take a chance and go camping for a couple of days. We also decided to go in A's car for the first time (Mazda MX5 Coupe) so we had no idea how much of our camping stuff we would be able to fit in! The boot is actually a pretty good size. We started packing the essentials - tent and sleeping mats/bags first and gradually added stuff until the boot was full. And I do mean full! We squeazed our little pillows behind the seats. We had a great drive down to the New Forest in the sun (with the roof down of course!). We went to a Forest Holidays campsite (Holmsley) as we'd checked the availability online and also the site has a shop and takeaway and although we'd packed a frying pan we weren't really set up for cooking much. I was keeping my fingers crossed that they would be doing croissants in the mornings (as they did at their Forest of Dean site when we went a while ago. Yum!) and the did.
Because we were pretty limited on space I decided to take my old Nikon D70 with its 18-70mm kit lens. No bag. I just chucked it in the boot! Well, carefully placed it anyway. It was really strange using it after my D700. The screen is TINY and pretty useless for looking at the photos but the histogram is useful. It is so light to carry though and I have to admit it made a pleasant change from lugging the D700 around.
We had to negotiate a road block before we could get to the site ;-)
It was the first of several we encountered! On one road there were 4 or 5 ponies enjoying the shade under a bridge and blocking the road nicely. The driver in front of us wasn't budging. There was room for him to drive between the ponies but I guess he didn't fancy it. Guess I don't blame him really and there's no way I'd usually drive through a small space between several ponies but they are so used to traffic they really don't seem to care as long as you take it nice and slow. The driver coming the other way was also reluctant to move. We sat for a while but nobody was moving, man or beast! In the end I got out the car and walked over to the ponies and just made some encourging noises and they moved over a bit so one of the cars could get through. I do wonder how long the 2 drivers would have sat there. The ponies were quite happy in their shady spot and I doubt they would have moved for a while.
The campsite is on an old airfield and it's not particularly inspiring - lots of concrete/tarmac (which actually could be a good thing in wet weather!) but plenty of grass too. It was also noisier than we had anticipated as it is quite close to the A35 and the road noise was noticeable at night. It is also under a flight path! Having said all that I still liked it. The shop is really handy (milk etc. was a bit pricey so we got most of our stuff at the Morrisons in New Milton which is a short drive away) and they also do takeaway coffees (latte, mocha etc. and very good they were too!). There is a small takeaway attached to the shop which was excellent. It wasn't open every day when we were there but they do a fine breakfast and the pizza was really good too.
Once we'd got our tent etc. set up we went off in search of fish and chips by the sea. We tried to find a place where we'd been before about a year ago. After driving down every bit of coastline between Boscombe and Key Haven we finally found the place (a kiosk in a car park at Milford on Sea) but it was closed :-( We then drove up to Lymington and followed the trail of people eating their fish and chips and finally got our supper which we sat and ate by the harbour.
On Friday we popped into New Milton and bought some provisions for lunch and then took a drive through the forest. We found a nice quite spot and had a relaxing afternoon sitting in the forest, drinking tea and eating our picnic :-)
Some of the leaves had a bit of an autunmal edge to them!
A couple of ponies wandered through the forest
and I spotted this massive fungi thingy on a tree near our picnic spot.
We met some cows in the road on one of our drives. I just stuck my camera above my head and took a few shots and this one worked! The cow was in no rush at all.
The weather was a bit miserable first thing on Saturday. We drove down to the coast and went for a walk round Hengistbury Head which was very pleasant and there were some great views (shame about the weather!)
The heather was really pretty
Didn't see much wildlife (what IS it with nature reserves?! I hardly ever see anything when I go to one!) apart from an Egret in the distance but we did have a very nice ice cream and I was pleased I managed to walk quite far with my still slightly dody leg. The weather brightened up towards the end of our walk so we headed back to the forest and found another place to sit for a while and have a cup of tea.
I did spot a couple of Dartford Warblers on the road up to the campsite one day. I got a quick snap of one (I didn't know what it was at the time) but he was quite far away!
At about 4am Sunday morning the rain started :-( We had a leisurely breakfast at the takeaway and then packed up everything from inside the tent hoping the rain would ease off for a while at some point. At about 11am it finally stopped raining for a while and we managed to finish packing up in the dry. We were a bit worried about how we would fit the tent in the car (not easy to pack it up properly when it's soaking wet!) so we decided to put our sleeping bags and other 'squishy' items in the space where the roof goes when you put it down to free up some spare room in the boot. Now, Mazda say you should never put anything in this space which I can understand because it would no doubt do some serious damage to the motor if you tried to retract the roof with stuff in there. But it's really hard to ignore that big inviting space and as it was raining we were pretty unlikely to decide to put the roof down! Do this at your own risk!
Breakfast, mmmmm ;-)
I'll leave you with a few more ponies - this cute foal was enjoying a snooze in the sun
and this mare rolled all the way over!
