A nice walk in the New Forest – first published 30 September 2012

Living just a few miles from the edge of the New Forest, as we do, means we tend to take it for granted. People come from all over the world to visit the lovely forest on our doorstep while we drive through on the way to other places and forget how lucky we are. Isn’t it always the way? Occasionally, we remember it’s there and have a little wander to remind ourselves just how beautiful it really is.  The end of September 2012 was one of those occasions.

30 September, 2012

This morning Commando had a ten mile run scheduled for his half marathon training and, for a change, he decided to drive out to the New Forest to do it. The plan was for him to run and me to walk, obviously not the same course because it would take me a lot longer to walk ten miles than he takes to run it. Sadly it wasn’t as bright and sunny as yesterday and it was quite windy but it wasn’t raining and the forecast said it would stay dry. We put on our trainers, gathered up water bottles, hats and other sundries and drove out to Deep Leap where there’s a car park and a few nice trails, one of which we’ve walked before.

Commando set out on the road route, mainly because, off road, it’s not the best surface for runners, lots of pot holes, gravel, boggy bits and goodness knows what else. Despite all the tought terrain, I set off to walk the trail we walked before, heading for Lyndhurst. The half marathon training plan was for a slow run, remember this is not about time it’s about covering the distance, and the run was supposed to take one hour forty minutes. With this is mind I decided to walk towards Lyndhurst until I hit the fifty minute mark and then turn round and retrace my steps. That way we should both arrive back at the car park round about the same time. Well, that was the theory anyway.

The first part of my walk was a gravel track through fairly open ground, mostly grass and Heath land, and I was soon glad I’d bought my hat. Not long after I left the shelter of the trees the cold wind was biting at my ears and, although I was warm from the effort of keeping a good pace, I had to put my hat on to keep my ears from hurting, or possibly falling off altogether. There were lots of ponies grazing but they didn’t seem to take much notice of me as I passed. I suppose the New Forest ponies are pretty used to seeing mad humans marching about.

When I reached the little railway bridge, weight limit seven point five tons, which might have given me cause for concern a few years ago, I was looking forward to reaching the shelter of the wooded walk past the Matley Wood campsite. The wind really was bitter. I crossed the stream and came out onto more heathland knowing it wasn’t much longer before the trees would be acting as a windbreak and wondering if I’d get within sight of the church at Lyndhurst before I had to turn back.

There’s a point where the path divides, and when I reached it, I couldn’t quite remember which way we’d walked before. After a little dithering and head scratching, I decided to take the left fork, feeling pretty confident both paths joined again a bit further on. It wasn’t long before I realised they didn’t and  I was going in the wrong direction but, by then, I knew I’d make a mess of my timing if I retraced my steps so I decided to press on and and see where I ended up. Either way it looked like I was heading for the trees and, as I was using my Walkmeter with its handy little map, I knew I wasn’t going to get lost, well not much anyway.

The relief from the wind when I made the tree line was short lived. After I crossed another stream I came out on a large grassy clearing with some more ponies grazing in the distance and no more path. I have to admit I wasn’t sure what to do next and I was considering turning back. When I saw two walkers emerge from the trees at the other side of the clearing I decided to walk towards the place they’d come from and see if I could pick up the path there.

Sure enough there was a nice gravel path leading up a steep bank. When I reached the top I could see it led through the heather to more trees so I followed it. Unfortunately, not long after I reached the trees the path disappeared again and I was heading towards a road, possibly the Beaulieu Road but I’m not entirely sure. Again I was stumped as to which way to go. There was no more path, I didn’t have time to head along the road towards Beaulieu or Lyndhurst and I was, by this point, forty minutes into my walk. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do but turn back with some vague idea of getting back to the original fork in the path and walking towards the campsite for ten minutes and then turning back and making for my start point.

This would have probably worked quite well if I hadn’t gone into a bit of a daydream looking at the heathland around me, missed the turn and ended up back at the one mile mark with far too much time to spare.  Wondering what to do I spotted a little gate beside the path with another trail leading into a dense stand of pine trees so I decided to take that and walk for the extra ten minutes each way instead. By this time my useless bladder was telling me I had to find somewhere sheltered to stop pretty soon anyway. After a quick detour into the pines to find a suitable spot (luckily there was no one about) I marched on.

Even with all my, mistakes, calculations and detours, I still made it back to the car park with ten minutes to spare so I took yet another path, leading in the opposite direction to my first walk and did five extra minutes each way to make up the time. Talk about a catalogue of errors and miscalculations! It seemed so simple at the start too.

Shortly after I arrived back at the car for the second time, Commando emerged from the path I’d just come down, looking very fresh for someone who’s just run ten miles. I really don’t know how he does it. Five minutes of running and I need an ambulance yet he can run for one hour forty minutes and then complain that he can’t go as slow as the training plan wants him to. Somehow I don’t think he’s going to have any problem with the half marathon.