Holiday...
Back from an extended weekend camping in the New Forest with Cat, Carl & Sam - which I'd been meaning to do forever, and had made it one of my Mission101 tasks, just to make sure I'd go...
We were really lucky with the weather, and bar a short shower overnight on Sunday, the rain held off - so I have lots of photos, some of which I'll put on
viki_101 . On the first day, we all met up at a pub near the campsite and headed into the site together to pitch our tents. We got a spot towards the back of the site near the trees, but against the edge beyond which no camping was allowed, so we'd have a lovely view of the forest uninterrupted by other people's tents :) Once we were sorted, we had a quick visit to Lyndhurst (sweeties!) and picked up the last few bits needed for the holiday. In the evening we had a BBQ, courtesy of Carl who looked after the fire while Paul, Cat and I played ball games with Sam.
The campsite is really lovely - big, so you don't have to pitch up right next to other people, and a nice mix of open spaces and pictches in the trees. It's near to the road, so it's not as quiet as some of the places I'd been, but in the evenings, when the traffic dies down, it's fine and you don't really notice it. The campsite has free roaming wild New Forest ponies, which graze over the whole site - very cute and add to the feeling of staying "in" the forest, but as I will come to later, are also a bit of a hazard...
The next day, we went to the Otter Sanctuary for most of the day (where I satisfied my need to look at otters for a good few weeks - and decided I wanted a pet harvest mouse), with a brief visit to the farm shop on the way back to the campsite. Best quote of the day came from Sam, who on being informed the Lynx had died, asked which tank it had been kept in! Cat patiently explained that large cats generally don't get kept in tanks, whilst the rest of us stifled giggles at the imagery of a Lynx in scuba gear :P
That evening, we went to the pub near the campsite and had a lovely meal while Sam made friends on the climbing frame.
The next day we went off to find a place called Bucklers Hard as Carl was on a mission to find his namesake town. It was a cute little village with a history linked to boats and fishing, though didn't actually have much there to hold our attention beyond a 40 minute stroll down to the bay and back while taking a few photos! So we carried on in the car to Lepe where we completed an Easter Egg Hunt with Sam, who won a creme egg for his efforts, had lunch in the sun on the cliff tops, strolled along the sea edge for a while and ate ice cream! It was so sunny pretty much all of us got sunburned (I am currently bearing a glowing red nose...). The irony of this is I had completely dismissed the need for suncream when packing!!
In the evening, we cooked at the campsite and Paul followedup on the bacon sammich he had successfully fried on the trangia in the morning, with a chicken pasta meal. I have not get decided whether he has completed enough camping tasks to earn the coveted Titanium Spork awarded to all campers once they have achieved camping excellence. I don't know whether Paul deserves one just for losing his camping virginity...
Tuesday morning, was officially the last day as our booking ran out. Paul and I had spent a while trying to decide whether to extend our vacation for a couple more days, the difficulty in making the decision had been that the weather forecast was poor (rain the rest of the week). However, it looked like a bright day and we still had a few things we wanted to see/do, so we had a chat with Carl and Cat and said we were going to book for another night. This is where things went a bit wrong...
We went off to the site office to make the booking and hung around for a few minutes as the site owner was not there. As she approached, we saw Carl coming towards us beckoning us to speak to him. We told the lady we wanted to extend our stay but would just talk to our friend. Carl looked a bit stricken as he approached us to tell us that while we'd been away, one of the ponies had gotten into our tent. For a moment I was really panicked as the cameras/trangias/walking boots and no end of expensive things were in there - but Carl said they had shooed it out quite quick, though unfortunately the horse had ripped the tent up. The site owner wasn't hugely sympathetic, being more keen to ensure we knew they weren't responsible for the ponies than to be helpful or sympathetic. So, we said we no longer wished to book for a further stay and headed back to the tent. It was basically as Carl had described - the horse had ripped open the door part of the tent to get in, making the tent a write-off as it can't be repaired due to it then not being waterproof.
I was fairly annoyed, though not so much at the loss of the tent. Just cross because we did all the right things and followed the site rule of keeping no food in the tent (it was always locked in the car) and not feeding the ponies as this would encourage them. Unfortunately, because some people feed them, they learn to associate the tents with food and when they are hungry, break in for a look. I guess we just got unlucky as the site was quiet they had less options! It could have been worse. I mean, if we'd all gone out for the day already, god knows what the pony would have chewed on. We were lucky (and thankful!) it happened while Carl and Cat were there to minimise the damage! (When Carl said the pony had got in, i'd had visions of it having trodden on my camera!)
Mostly I'm just a bit miserable that we've had to cut our holiday short, and after the forecast being rain for the whole week, we get back here and the forecast has changed to blazing sunshine for the week! I was really miserable when we arrived back at the flat in London, and called my parents to tell them what had happened. Mum cheered me up a bit and we ended up determined to still make the most of what remains of the week. I've been on late rooms and booked us a hotel in the Forest of Dean for Friday and Saturday. I was surprised at what a good deal we got, given it's Easter weekend. Hopefully this will more than make up for the loss of the extra days in the New Forest.
Now just to spend two days tidying the flat in preparation for the landlord's visit and unpacking one holiday to pack for the next!
We were really lucky with the weather, and bar a short shower overnight on Sunday, the rain held off - so I have lots of photos, some of which I'll put on
viki_101 . On the first day, we all met up at a pub near the campsite and headed into the site together to pitch our tents. We got a spot towards the back of the site near the trees, but against the edge beyond which no camping was allowed, so we'd have a lovely view of the forest uninterrupted by other people's tents :) Once we were sorted, we had a quick visit to Lyndhurst (sweeties!) and picked up the last few bits needed for the holiday. In the evening we had a BBQ, courtesy of Carl who looked after the fire while Paul, Cat and I played ball games with Sam.
The campsite is really lovely - big, so you don't have to pitch up right next to other people, and a nice mix of open spaces and pictches in the trees. It's near to the road, so it's not as quiet as some of the places I'd been, but in the evenings, when the traffic dies down, it's fine and you don't really notice it. The campsite has free roaming wild New Forest ponies, which graze over the whole site - very cute and add to the feeling of staying "in" the forest, but as I will come to later, are also a bit of a hazard...
The next day, we went to the Otter Sanctuary for most of the day (where I satisfied my need to look at otters for a good few weeks - and decided I wanted a pet harvest mouse), with a brief visit to the farm shop on the way back to the campsite. Best quote of the day came from Sam, who on being informed the Lynx had died, asked which tank it had been kept in! Cat patiently explained that large cats generally don't get kept in tanks, whilst the rest of us stifled giggles at the imagery of a Lynx in scuba gear :P
That evening, we went to the pub near the campsite and had a lovely meal while Sam made friends on the climbing frame.
The next day we went off to find a place called Bucklers Hard as Carl was on a mission to find his namesake town. It was a cute little village with a history linked to boats and fishing, though didn't actually have much there to hold our attention beyond a 40 minute stroll down to the bay and back while taking a few photos! So we carried on in the car to Lepe where we completed an Easter Egg Hunt with Sam, who won a creme egg for his efforts, had lunch in the sun on the cliff tops, strolled along the sea edge for a while and ate ice cream! It was so sunny pretty much all of us got sunburned (I am currently bearing a glowing red nose...). The irony of this is I had completely dismissed the need for suncream when packing!!
In the evening, we cooked at the campsite and Paul followedup on the bacon sammich he had successfully fried on the trangia in the morning, with a chicken pasta meal. I have not get decided whether he has completed enough camping tasks to earn the coveted Titanium Spork awarded to all campers once they have achieved camping excellence. I don't know whether Paul deserves one just for losing his camping virginity...
Tuesday morning, was officially the last day as our booking ran out. Paul and I had spent a while trying to decide whether to extend our vacation for a couple more days, the difficulty in making the decision had been that the weather forecast was poor (rain the rest of the week). However, it looked like a bright day and we still had a few things we wanted to see/do, so we had a chat with Carl and Cat and said we were going to book for another night. This is where things went a bit wrong...
We went off to the site office to make the booking and hung around for a few minutes as the site owner was not there. As she approached, we saw Carl coming towards us beckoning us to speak to him. We told the lady we wanted to extend our stay but would just talk to our friend. Carl looked a bit stricken as he approached us to tell us that while we'd been away, one of the ponies had gotten into our tent. For a moment I was really panicked as the cameras/trangias/walking boots and no end of expensive things were in there - but Carl said they had shooed it out quite quick, though unfortunately the horse had ripped the tent up. The site owner wasn't hugely sympathetic, being more keen to ensure we knew they weren't responsible for the ponies than to be helpful or sympathetic. So, we said we no longer wished to book for a further stay and headed back to the tent. It was basically as Carl had described - the horse had ripped open the door part of the tent to get in, making the tent a write-off as it can't be repaired due to it then not being waterproof.
I was fairly annoyed, though not so much at the loss of the tent. Just cross because we did all the right things and followed the site rule of keeping no food in the tent (it was always locked in the car) and not feeding the ponies as this would encourage them. Unfortunately, because some people feed them, they learn to associate the tents with food and when they are hungry, break in for a look. I guess we just got unlucky as the site was quiet they had less options! It could have been worse. I mean, if we'd all gone out for the day already, god knows what the pony would have chewed on. We were lucky (and thankful!) it happened while Carl and Cat were there to minimise the damage! (When Carl said the pony had got in, i'd had visions of it having trodden on my camera!)
Mostly I'm just a bit miserable that we've had to cut our holiday short, and after the forecast being rain for the whole week, we get back here and the forecast has changed to blazing sunshine for the week! I was really miserable when we arrived back at the flat in London, and called my parents to tell them what had happened. Mum cheered me up a bit and we ended up determined to still make the most of what remains of the week. I've been on late rooms and booked us a hotel in the Forest of Dean for Friday and Saturday. I was surprised at what a good deal we got, given it's Easter weekend. Hopefully this will more than make up for the loss of the extra days in the New Forest.
Now just to spend two days tidying the flat in preparation for the landlord's visit and unpacking one holiday to pack for the next!