A fine day with times of brightness was the forecast so we headed of for Lyndhurst in the New Forest National Park and for most of the day the weather was low cloud dullness with some wetness. The locals seemed happy however, out walking in their hundreds because of the unseasonal warmness.
First stop was at Corf Castle - another ruined castle with quite a history - lots of intrigue and mistrust between the ruling classes. Highlights were seeing the firing of a catapult at the castle wall - the projectile being a soccer ball filled with water, and a passing steam train.
Mid afternoon we arrived a the lovely Royal Hotel in New Forest, where , not only are we on the 1st floor and not the 4th floor, there is also a lift! - reputedly the oldest in Europe. You open a cage door to get in, it holds two, and at your floor you exit via a side caged door - open the door to soon and your stuck! If you exit and forget to close the door behind you it won't move when the button is pushed on another floor and someone has to come up from reception to close the door - they must love it.
Wednesday 25th October
Two months to Christmas AND Leisel's eleventh birthday - we sure are missing all the grandchildren. The plan for today had been to have a day at Portsmouth - an hours drive away, lots of museums to visit and things to see but we decided we were just too tired and needed a rest day before London, Rome, Sienna... etc. etc. So what do we do? Given the choice, Merilyn decided on a bike ride in the forest which ended up taking about 4 hours! We travelled on some bitumen roads, rocky side roads, gravel tracks and very muddy tracks. It was good fun but we came home feeling very tired - so much for a restful day. Still, we saw lovely forested areas with autumn trees and tall conifers. clear streams, and open grassland with wild ponies grazing. I am still amazed that the National Parks seem to be for people to let their dogs run loose, and for herds/flocks of domestic animals to have freedom to roam at will, in this case ponies (which we saw plenty of), donkeys, deer and pigs. The weather was superb today, 17C, no wind and plenty of sunshine - consequently there were heaps of people enjoying the outdoors. A lovely Indian meal finished the day. Tomorrow we give up the car after 57 trouble free days and hopefully find the right train to take us to London. A new chapter in the adventure!
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