Day Three: Here, There, and Everywhere

For breakfast this morning, I decided to go for the cheese and bacon omelette, because let’s be honest, nothing with cheese and bacon in it ever tasted bad. Both Jamie and I were a bit stiff after yesterday’s death march, and I suspect the kids were as well, although with them not speaking English it’s a bit hard to tell sometimes. We decided that instead of another day of trekking, we’d spend a bit more time in the car exploring the local villages.

After breakfast, we loaded the kiddos into the car and drove to the little village of Beaulieu – the bit of The Forest by Edward Rutherford that I was at was set at the Beaulieu Abbey and I was curious to see what it actually looked like. The drive over to Beaulieu didn’t take as long as I’d expected – I’m constantly surprised how close together everything is in Britain. We stopped briefly on the way to see if we could find a herd of highland cattle that I thought I’d seen, however all we saw were a few ponies sleeping while standing up and a group of people with remote control model airplanes. I wanted to watch some of the big ones take off, but Jamie was bored so we left.

When we got to Beaulieu we discovered that they were having a local market, so we parked in the village hall parking lot and took a look (I’d like to say that a guy in a little hatchback took three or four tries to get out of his parking space, while I managed to back into it on the first try, despite my car being twice the size of his, and despite my being a bit of a rubbish driver when I’m on the wrong side of the road).

Having been to any number of local French markets while in France, we may have been expecting too much from the British one. There was a butcher’s table set up outside as well as a little veg stand, and few little stalls set up inside the hall selling everything from hand-made jewellery to woollen blankets to a very enthusiastic New Forest baker who was regaling everyone with tales of proper British baking. He’d actually come up with a brilliant idea - seperating a loaf of bread into two-slice sections and sealing them up. We don't eat a lot of bread, so just taking enough for a sandwich out of the freezer at a time in their little packages is perfect! He was so excited about baking though - was trying to bring back old bread recipes from the 20's...no preservatives or additives, just bread. We bought two loafs, then spent a good ten minutes trying to leave - I guess he figured he had a captive audience...

After the market, we took a bit of a walk through the village of Beaulieu. It's a very cute, but very small little place, with ponies and donkeys wandering about all over the place. We saw the back of the abbey but there didn't seem to be any doors or entrances that we could see. Charlie spent some quality time barking at the donkeys, one of her favourite New Forest pastimes. Not annoying at all. We had reservations for lunch at The Hare and Hounds in Sway for lunch, so packed back into the car and headed out.

The drive to Sway was uneventful other than one breakthrough discovery. One of the downsides of constantly hiring different vehicles is that you never really get used to any of them. I'd noticed that on the vehicle info screen on the Touareg, the bonnet displayed as red. As it had done this when we picked it up from the car hire place, I assumed it was supposed to. Jamie, very cleverly, had noticed that when she opened her door, the little door animation on the vehicle information screen also turned red. If you've put it all together already, you're smarter than me. Yes, I'd been driving around Britian for two days with the bonnet not securely fastened. As soon as I'd closed it, all the weird things that the damn car had been doing stopped - the menus screens started working properly, and most importantly, the wipers started working even if we weren't moving.

Lunch at The Hare and Hounds was actually pretty good - a good portion of roast beef, a big ole yorkshire pudding, potatoes, and as probably expected in dear ole blighty, overcooked veg (I'd be disappointed if I got a serving of veg anywhere in Britian that hadn't been cooked to within an inch of it's life. I may have also enjoyed a tasty pint of Fuggle De Dum by Goddards brewery on the Isle of Wight - well worth a sip if you can find it...

After lunch, we hit the road once again, this time on the Rhinefield Ornamental Drive just east of Brockenhurst. We stopped for a brief walk in the forest again, but didn't opt for the epic walk we could've done. It seemed that the forest in that area would have been beautiful a little later in the spring or summer with all the leaves out, but we were a bit early. On the other hand, there seemed to be a fair bit of pine around so it reminded us of the forests in Canada so was nice to spend a bit of time in.

Jamie and I still wanted to see the abbey at Beaulieu, so after a bit of a wander, we got back in the car and drove back to Beaulieu. Just before the village is a turn-off for Buckler's Hard. We didn't know what it was, but it has a funny name so we took the turning and went for a look. It turns out it's an old sea-side village where they used to build ships. Now they charge people to go look at it. As we hadn't planned on seeing it anyway and were feeling a bit cheap, we turned around and headed back to Beaulieu.

We got back to the village and found the signs for the abbey and manor house. We were surprised to find a huge series of 4 parking lots and a big entrance hall. We were even more surprised to find that it was going to cost us £15.75 each to get into the place. To be fair, for that price we would have been able to get in to the abbey, the manor house AND the motor museum (an odd combination, but there you have it). On the other hand, we had the kids with us so we wouldn't be allowed into any of the buildings. So £15.75 each to wander around inside a fenced-in area. We could do that for free, and not even have the fence!

We left Beaulieu and turned off the sat nav, relying on the ordinance survey map. Of course, this meant that we fairly quickly got relatively lost and spent a fair bit of time driving about. It was during this drive that I managed to slightly hit a small wooden post while not driving very quickly at all, and in a parking lot to boot. Don't worry - not a lot of damage at all, no harm no foul.

We were feeling so upset by the events of the afternoon that we felt that we needed a fresh pint to steady our nerves. We found a new pub (well, new to us) probably called something The Royal Oak or something similar (can't actually remember the name, but I think it actually was The Royal Oak) on the edge of one of the heaths. It was one of the least scenic points of the New Forest, however they cleverly acknowledged this by advertising the wonderful view in the evening of the twinkling lights of the oil refinery across the heath...nice one. They did have a little donkey in the parking lot that was doing its bit by licking the dirt off the cars parked there - thoughtful.

Eventually, we felt that our nerves were steadied sufficiently to drive back to Brockenhurst and find somewhere for dinner (this sounds bad - I'd only had one pint at the pub, the last pint having been several hours earlier - no drinking and driving for this kid). Jamie had seen a wine bar on the high street that she wanted to try, so we looked at the menu. She was then momentarily distracted by the curry place up the road that had gotten good reviews in the guest book. I, on the other hand, was looking forward to a nice steak.

We went into Brookley's and found that it was run by a french guy - a good sign in a wine bar. We both ordered the sirloin with chips and a bottle for cotes de rhone as recommended, which turned out to be quite a nice bottle. Not much I can say about the steak - it was cooked by a french guy, so arrived rare as ordered, as opposed to the medium well I would have expected if cooked by a Brit :) We finished out dinner and went back to the B&B to crash. Again, sad and old.