We took Lizzie out for a short local getaway to the Black Knowl caravan and motorhome site in the New Forest.
It was lovely to hear the bellows of various stags in the distance (it’s rutting season so care needs to be taken whilst out walking not to disturb them) and to be serenaded by hooting owls in the evenings. The weather was reasonable and on one of the sunny days we did the 10 mile circular walk to Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst. We were entertained by grey squirrels gathering nuts, foals chasing around the heathland and fungi spotting – lots around but all those we spotted were not edible so just as we we only took photos!
The next day we took a gentle stroll across Black Knowl into Brockenhurst village – we had visited several times before but always manage to learn something new on each visit. We walked up to St Nicholas Church (the oldest church in the New Forest) as we’d seen that there were Commonwealth War Graves there. Well what a surprise – there are 110 graves here, mostly First World War and mostly New Zealanders. The church has an incredible amount of information about the role of Brockenhurst as a First World War Hospital village – due to its close proximity to Southampton where the wounded were brought into from France. 1914 to 1916 there was a hospital for the Indian troops and then later it became the No 1 New Zealand General Hospital. There are information boards of stories of the staff and patients and folders full of individual accounts – an amazing amount of research that we had never come across before in earlier visits to the village. You could easily spend several hours reading it all.
We loved our short trip back to the New Forest – it just goes to show that you don’t need to travel far or for a long time to enjoy nature and learn something new.
