During a walk through the New Forest, I came across this fallen tree. When a large tree falls, it is always somewhat surprising because the scale of large trees gives them an impression of imperviousness. Of course, they will all fall eventually. When they do, it seems like it is a big shock. The roots are still bound tight with earth and standing beside this gives you an impression of the scale. I stuck myself in there just for reference!
Walking through Lyndhurst one gloomy afternoon, my eye was drawn to an old building that looks like it is in need of some attention. The roof seemed to have become a bit of a home from some plant growth, and I was fascinated by what had got established. I wonder how much damage the roots have done to the structure beneath!
A walk we took through the New Forest brought us to the Knightwood Oak. The New Forest is an ancient forest, but this tree is older than many that are there. Supposedly, there were laws enacted long ago regarding the practice of pollarding trees. The fact this one was pollarded suggests it will have predated this time which suggests it might be 500 years old. That is not the oldest tree I have come across. Our travels in California did bring us to some extremely old trees too. I can’t recall exactly how old but possibly older than this. Even so, 500 years old isn’t bad for a tree.
I suspect if I had come here when I was young, you probably would have just walked up to the trunk. Now, the need to protect the tree means that an enclosure has been set up around it. The good news about that is that it keeps people out of many possibly photos you might want to take. (Funny how, when you are interested in getting photos, you are “focused” on different things to other people.) I had a wander around the perimeter of the enclosure to check out the whole tree before we continued on our walk.
A sunny Saturday afternoon and we had some time with my mum and headed down to the New Forest for a stroll. I had thought that it would be very busy down there given that it was a lovely weekend, but I was pleasantly surprised just how quiet it was once we got there. It wasn’t a long walk – just a nice wander through the woods and over some of the open grounds. It was a super place to be, and you can see why old monarchs will have liked to keep it for hunting grounds although I understand it was not good agricultural land and was better for common grazing.
Here are a few shots from our stroll across the countryside. It is about half an hour from our home and so I think we shall be making more trips down there in the coming months. The selection of good pubs for lunch is certainly not going to hurt that idea!
A walk in the New Forest one weekend was a very pleasant way to spend a day. This was not supposed to be an aviation related time but, as we walked across some open grassland, I noticed something large and four engined coming towards us at pretty low level. It was clearly an Airbus A340-600. European Cargo picked up a few of these jets and is using them from the nearby Bournemouth Airport for freight runs to China. I don’t believe they are a full cargo conversion but instead load the cargo through the normal passenger doors.
I only had the 24-105 on the camera so was a little limited in what I could get. However, when I went to the Bournemouth Aviation Museum a week later, I could see a couple of their jets on the ground at the airport. One was being loaded for another flight while an all-white jet with a registration that might be Maltese, seemed to be stored. Another time, I did try getting a shot of one departing, but conditions were far from ideal, and the location is not great for photography, so things were a bit compromised. Even so, it is cool to see some A340s still in use aside from the Lufthansa examples that have been my only other recent examples.
A spot of Sunday lunch with the family meant a trip out to Beaulieu. Located in the New Forest, it is well known as the home of the National Motor Museum. However, that was not our destination. Instead it was the Montagu Arms for some food and then a stroll around the village. It seems the place is also a destination for people with old cars as a few rumbled through the place while we were there including what I think is an MG-A that I did happen to get a shot of.
The swans that were swimming nearby seemed pretty interested in us when they thought there was food involved but rapidly realized we were of no use to them and went back to what they were doing – also eating it seemed. We did notice a house across from the pub with conspicuously red doors. It attracted a lot of people who were having their picture taken outside so I wonder whether this is a location that is popular on Instagram?
Continuing our UK trip, we were still in the New Forest and I wanted to visit Beaulieu. It is many years since I have been to Beaulieu. My grandparents took me there once and we went with the school on one occasion too. However, I wasn’t interested in visiting the motor museum on this occasion. Certainly, if I had a lot more time, I would have loved to take a look around but we didn’t have that much time. Instead, I wanted to see the village which, judging by some pictures I had seen online, looked like it was very picturesque.
First, though, I had to stay awake. As we drove there, I was feeling rather drowsy. Not a good state to be but hardly surprising given how long I had been awake. When we got the village, I put the seat back and had a nap for a few minutes. This was a big help. Nancy was tired but not able to nap so she checked out a tea shop while I closed my eyes.
We then took a walk around the village. It is by a river and is very pretty. Lots of small houses and shops combined with a big green area all alongside the estate of the Earl which now houses the motor museum. What I hadn’t realized is how much wildlife wanders around. Yes there were ducks and swans. I didn’t know that cows, horses and donkeys were loose in the area. The donkeys seem to like the shops and apparently walk in if they feel like it. The horses and cows were grazing on the more grassy areas but if they needed to get somewhere, they would walk up the street and trucks coming the other way would just have to wait. Could I come up with something more English for our first day back?
This is the first of a series of posts that shall crop up in the coming weeks that are from a trip to the UK. Both my parents had significant birthdays this year and parties for both of them were to top and tail a trip back for us. It has been a long time since we were back and it was nice to see a lot of people while we were there.
We arrived in Heathrow early in the morning and picked up the rental car. We didn’t have anyone to see that day and our hotel wouldn’t be free until later in the day so we had a mission to keep ourselves busy and to stay awake. Consequently, we headed down to the New Forest in search of a bird of prey sanctuary.
We had found this place online so didn’t know much more about it than the website. The GPS got us there without any trouble. I had bought the Europe maps for our Garmin because, despite years of getting around the UK without having heard of GPS, now I guess I am dependent! The place was not huge but it had a very large collection of birds including lots of species of owl. We wandered around looking at the various birds before a small flying demonstration took place on their flying field. Apparently some of the bigger birds would be flying at the second show but we were content with what they had earlier on. We didn’t want to spend all day there.
At the end of the flying, they brought out a couple of baby barn owls. They were just in the stage of fledging but were still very fluffy and we were encouraged to stroke them to see just how soft they were. Very soft and very cute. It’s almost like I am back in my cute baby animal posts!
