Rufus Stone

2011-12-27, Subsurface water a video by Dr Yool on Flickr.

Out today to the New Forest to get lost again on a walk we've done before. It's one of those which looks simple on the map but involves crossing an ill-defined region of forest guided only by markers which have long since disappeared. Still, it was fun in the end, and we got to see deer and wild pigs into the bargain.

C also found this rather bizarre water feature when we were crossing a boggy region. It was like a little "blister" of water trapped beneath a "skin" of turf strong enough to take our weights (yes, even mine).

Anyway, it also afforded an opportunity to test out my phone's GPS capabilities. Though it began to be useful by the end, it wasn't a whole lot of use when we needed it. More practise needed I think.

Winkworth & Mottisfont

Winkworth & Mottisfont, a set on Flickr.

We spent both days this passed weekend ticking off nearly-local National Trust sites. Got to make that membership pay for itself.

Our first stop was Winkworth Arboretum up in Surrey. It was pretty good, though not as bathed in autumn colours as we'd hoped. It was also somewhat lacking in the tearoom facilities that we've come to expect from the NT - no lemon drizzle cake (or decent sandwiches) here. Lunch was instead provided by nearby Godalming (home of the Nosmo King sign).

Sunday saw us out passed Romsey at Mottisfont Abbey. Not that you'd know it was a former abbey these days. The abbey, or parts of it anyway, have been almost entirely subsumed within a manor house exterior. It's quite something to see an arch or medieval wall hidden in a corner of an otherwise stately-seeming home. In a change from Saturday, dining was of a high standard (if matched by similarly high prices).

Odelle and Stuart's visit

Odelle and Stuart's visit, a set on Flickr.

We had the outlaws down this weekend. Just a flying Friday-to-Sunday affair, but we had a really good time with them.

Saturday was spent down in Lymington, for a cruise of the shops and market, and then New Milton, for a walk along Hurst Spit. We then followed it up with a curry in a new-ish place on Oxford Street, Rasraj - very nice as it turned out.

Sunday saw us up in Winchester for a bit of a walk around the town as well as some hat fair event. The latter was spread across the town, but we focused on a park with a number of dance/juggling/acrobat acts (always with a large dollop of broad comedy). Most excellent - and great weather too for once.

The next set of outlaws are heading down in three weeks' time ...

Minstead hike

Minstead hike, a set on Flickr.

A nice 10 km hike through the "village" of Minstead and the surrounding portions of the New Forest. The forest portions were, thankfully, largely that - forest - rather than the blasted heath that often passes for the New Forest, and the weather was with us more than on our recent jaunt to nearby Fritham.

As the map shows, my attempt to pre-program the walk into my GPS was somewhat hamstrung by changes in the layout of the forest that don't appear in the OS maps that I have. Not enough to get us lost this time. Google also seems to have some mismatch that shifts its satellite mapping a few 10s of metres eastwards.

---

P.S. Further to the above, and thanks to G, I've uploaded the GPS information from our walk into GoogleMaps and created the little map below ...

View Minstead walk in a larger map