Been an interesting time recently, what with hospitalisation of the MiL and her subsequent return chez nous at roughly the same time as half term brought a welcome visit from rellies. Fortunately I had won a family ticket for Beaulieu Motor Museum at a men’s breakfast event at our church. I know, you should have a church with such prizes! Anyways, it meant my sister’s family could visit free of charge, although due to aforementioned return of MiL, we were not able to go with them. Oh well, I guess the museum ain’t going any place, I’ll just have to win another ticket.

Fortunately the extraordinary weather held for the next day and we were able to go for a wander to find some ponies for niece to look at during the afternoon. Big fan of ponies is the niece. Now if you want to be reasonably sure of seeing ponies, and truthfully they aren’t that hard to find, then Whitefield Moor to the west of Brockenhurst is a pretty safe bet. So long as it isn’t raining too hard then you should get to see ponies in numbers and most likely some pretty large cattle as well. The fact that there is often an ice cream van in the Whitefield Moor car park during peak periods isn’t exactly a deterrent either. In fact unless you really are there to see ponies, the Whitefield car park is the best place to start as you get a choice of two gentle circular walks which cross the river and meander alongside it before returning.

We however had to see ponies, so we stopped at the smaller unnamed car park just outside Brock in order to walk along the moor. I say it’s unnamed mainly because I have never noticed a name and no local maps seem to be of help. Anyway it is in fact the first turning on the right as you get to Whitefield Moor which leads off to camping and caravan sites. Having seen the requisite number of correctly shaped quadrupeds (sans horns), we then felt obliged to take a turn around the longer of the two walks in anticipation of a significant intake of tea and flapjacks on our return home. I say longer, it’s only 1.5 miles so it’s hardly a polar expedition, but it’s a pleasant walk and quite far enough on the day.

Walking back to the car gave us one of those views the Forest is so good at this time of the year. The one where ground mist appears in open spaces between trees and given an ethereal quality by the late afternoon light. Does the soul good to see it.