Base Camp Journal - New Forest
The route to the Black Knowl CMC site from Cardiff is straightforward, but it still took four and a half hours to get there, on account of the traffic conditions. While the roads around Brokenhurst aren’t single lane, they are awkwardly narrow, even without a caravan attached. We didn’t follow the directions given to us by the site’s owners, as that would have taken us through the small village.
Despite it being a very warm afternoon, and the air being stiflingly humid, Robby and I got to work setting up the water and waste systems, and the electrical supply. We parked Bertha only a few metres from the resupply point. Putting the awning up took around ten minutes, as it didn’t take much effort driving the pegs into the grass pitch and we didn’t need to secure it much. That’s one very good thing about not reserving a hard pitch.
Black Knowl is quite unique in being a largely uncultivated clearing in a region of largely uncultivated woodland, and it’s not as sterile as most CMC sites. A ‘knowl’, I understand, is an old English word for an elevated section of land, something that’s not quite a hill. The grounds of the local woodland are covered with dead leaves, blackened from being immersed in what I imagine is marshland during the winter. The soil is like a very dark ash, probably because it had baked in the sun over the previous months. I’m guessing this is how the site got its name.
The fields appear to have been ploughed farmland at some point in the past. Today there are horses, bulls, cows and donkeys grazing on them - they are livestock owned by the locals, and allowed to roam freely on the land in this region, under some arcane laws established almost a millenium ago. We have explored only a very small part of that forest.
Brokenhurst is only 1,600 metres from the caravan site. It looks nice enough, like a traditional English village, but Lyndhurst is a bit more interesting. The walk to Brockenhurst from the CMC site is a perfect dog walking route, though, and there are always the livestock grazing in the fields we passed.
Lyndhurst
While passing through Lyndhurst on the way in, we noticed the Imperial China restaurant, and we couldn’t leave without giving it a try. It’s been years since either of us had been in a Chinese restaurant. Parking is free in Lyndhurst after 18:00, and there were plenty of spaces.
The restaurant is very nice, with a lovely quiet atmosphere, and the food is relatively expensive but worth it. They serve Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter set meals, each one being three courses, and we ordered the Summer special (obviously). There was so much variety in the menu.
Further down the main street is a Ferrari dealership, with around twenty cars in the yard and the showroom, and we did some window shopping there. A few of the cars cost about £500,000. Others around £140,000. They’re not my cup of tea, being much too wide (where could one drive a Ferrari in Britain?), and I’d be hopeless at driving anything with an automatic transmission.
Back to Bournemouth
Since we were about 15 miles from Bournemouth, we took another trip there, with me hoping it would be sunny. The sky is always overcast when I visit Bournemouth, and it was again this time also.
The outdoor area of The West Beach bar looks so much nicer, picturesque even, than it did during the pandemic, when they had screens between each table. This time it looked just like a giant lounge area on the beach, and everyone was relaxed, and it’s definitely somewhere we like to stop whenever we’re in the area. Unfortunately the breeze made it a bit cold to stay, with Robby wearing just a t-shirt. Who could have imagined there was a heatwave just a couple of days before?
Portsmouth
Getting into Portsmouth was a bit tricky. The road system and the traffic on the way in was pretty congested, with a tailback approaching Gun Wharf that moved a few inches every ten minutes because people were queuing for the car park there. I like cities less and less as I get older. Apart from Truro, that is.
‘There’s the Spinnaker Tower, look!’, Robby said, as we got closer to the city, pointing to a tall, white pointy thing in the distance, as if it was some famous landmark everyone knew of. It didn’t seem as tall as the i360 in Brighton, and I couldn’t tell whether it was supposed to be an apartment block, office building, or a giant fancy television mast.
The Spinnaker Tower appeared moderately impressive when we were actually in Gun Wharf. It’s basically a tall structure with three viewing platforms at the top. A couple of people were abseiling down it.
‘I don’t know if we can get up there.’ Robby said.
‘Probably. They got up somehow, and I can’t see a queue anywhere. It’s worth a try, just for the view.’
It turned out we could just rock up to a reception desk, buy a couple of tickets for £30 and take an elevator to the first viewing platform.
There was a short glass walkway in the first viewing platform. We were only 100 metres up, thereabouts, but I have a strong fear of heights, and quite literally dreaded the thought of walking across the glass. I walked across it several times anyway, because I wasn’t going away without taking some pictures.
From the top viewing platform, we had the perfect view of Portsmouth, and we came on the perfect day for it. We could see an old steam ship coming in from the Isle of Wight. I couldn’t make out the name of it. Leaving the docks was Mont St. Michel, one of the Brittany Ferries that I would travel on to northern France in the 1990s. I fancy returning to southern France that way also, taking my car across. I could also see another ship, about 200 years old, moored at the docks. It might serve as a museum.
That was pretty much the highlight of our visit to Portsmouth. Gun Wharf is a very large shopping complex, occupied almost entirely by the larger chain stores, and it was congested. Portsmouth has a city centre that’s roughly 1km from Gun Wharf. It looked a bit run down.
Mermaid Gin
I bought mini bottles of Zest and Pink versions of Mermaid Gin, while in Portsmouth. It is from a distillery on the Isle of Wight. Both have a strong flavour, one of citrus and the other probably strawberry. Would definitely buy a full bottle, if I come across it again.