The New Forest

Sick of sitting around, waiting for word that one of us has been lucky enough to land a job interview, Jason and I decided to get out of town for the weekend. This was a pretty spontaneous decision for a planner like myself, but it turned out to be a great weekend, prompting me to take more impromptu trips in the future.

Friday afternoon, we hopped on a train headed south. Our destination: the New Forest - a national park with quite an interesting history (Wikipedia link provided for those of you with lots of spare time on your hands...). We selected the New Forest partly because we'd heard that there were lots of great outdoor activities in the area, but mostly because it's an easy 3 hour trip from Cambridge. We arrived by 7 o'clock Friday evening and settled into our pretty room:


As I write this, I'm kicking myself because I've just remembered that had made a mental note take a picture of Jason in front of the B&B but kept managing to forget. Oh well, it would have looked like most other pictures of him standing next to European buildings with his shoulders square with the top of the door! The Cottage Lodge was a very typical old British building with lots of character and really low ceilings. Jason had to walk around all hunched over throughout most of the building. Luckily, our room had higher ceilings.

Saturday morning we set out for some bike riding on the many miles of trails through the forest. One of the things that the New Forest is most well known for are the ponies that roam freely through the forest. As we headed out, I told Jason that I was going to be really disappointed if we didn't see at least one pony throughout the course of the day. Well, lucky for me, I didn't have to wait long. Before we even got out of the village, we began seeing ponies everywhere - in people's driveways, on the playground of the local school, and roaming the streets:


Once we got out of the village and into the forest a bit, there seemed to be ponies everywhere we looked. They looked so soft and furry - unlike the typical, course hair I was used to seeing on horses - that it was all I could do to resist petting one, but after seeing lots of warnings about their "unpredictable" behavior, I thought better of it. They sure do look sweet though, don't they?


The forest landscape was incredibly diverse and seemed to change with every 10 minutes that we rode:




After riding for a couple of hours, we came to this little pub in the middle of nowhere. It was nice and warm on an otherwise fridged day, so we stopped to warm up with some cappuccinos and sandwiches made on the most magical bread we've ever tasted. I'm pretty sure The Oak Inn, Middle-of-Nowhere, UK will forever be etched in our brains as that place that had the best bread that has ever, or will ever, exist...


Warmed from our visit to the pub, we continued on into the forest until we came to this warning sign:


We decided to brave it and soon came upon this treacherous crossing:




Ok, we agree, looking at the pictures now, it looks pretty lame, but, at the time, we felt like we were doing some serious extreme riding! That current was swift, one false move and we could have been washed down the "river"!

Finally, as we were headed back to the village, we passed this herd of deer. Being from Idaho, I wouldn't typically be too excited about seeing some deer, but, look closely at this picture. Do you see anything out of the ordinary?


An albino deer! Pretty interesting even to this North Idaho girl.

So, in the end, our spontaneity paid off with a nice, relaxing weekend away from the stress of the job hunt. It makes me think...maybe I should start looking for a destination for next weekend's adventure...