Pony, pony, pony..BULL...pony, monkeys, pony!

Ponies, ponies everywhere

Starting to get to grips with driving a motorhome, we ventured a little further four our next outing - this time we headed for the New Forest.  We made it an "adults only" adventure and also had the luxury of an extra day tagged on to our weekend.

Earlier this year we had rented a motorhome for our birthdays, sort of as a trial run to see how we like it.  We stayed in the New Forest for a day, but found the motorhome we had rented was really big and soon learned not that practical for narrow country lanes, so we never really ventured far from the campsite.

Wurtlefkey however is perfect for motorhoming in the New Forest, nice and compact, the smaller roads were a doddle.  The journey there was at points a bit of a white knuckle ride, we had left quite late in the evening due to work commitments, so it was dark, with narrow roads and some really sharp bends, it was very much a "cross country rally" style kind of trip, Wolf drove while I shouted out navigation instructions from watching the SatNav .... "sharp right coming up....left left left....right right right!!!" all the while I was holding on to the "oh s**t" handle for dear life (we all have one of those handles, its the one just above the passengers side door)

Wurtlefkey and awning

We arrived about 10:30pm (still relishing the ease of plugging in and being set up in a matter of minutes) and settled down for the evening.  Saturday morning saw us up bright and early (well 10am'ish) to properly level the motorhome and pitch the awning - 30 minutes later we were all done and tucking into our veggie bacon sandwiches - oh the joy of an air inflated awning, with no poles to put together, a couple of pumps and voila the awning is up!

Cycling Tour of the New Forest

The BULL!

As the weather was fairly decent we took off to go and explore the New Forest.  Luckily there was a cycle rental shop on site so we rented a couple of mountain bikes (we forgot to pack ours) and set off with just a vague idea of which direction to go.  The views were absolutely amazing, and the path into the nearest village was actually relatively easy to follow.  Along the way we came across so many ponies we stopped counting, just wandering wild through the forest, a few cows and one rather large bull.  I tried to get pictures of the bull but it kept looking at me so I chickened out and ran away!

We cycled about 10 miles in to a local village Brockenhurst where we treated ourselves to the most humongous chocolate éclair I have ever seen!!!  Part of the journey took us out on to the main road where we came across mayhem - there was a wild pony taking a leisurely stroll quite literally down the middle of the road, with a couple of his "pony pals".  He walked about 100 yards and then just stopped, in the middle of the road and turned around so he was essentially completely blocking the road, he just stood there - the traffic was building up around him and he just stood there with a "this is my forest fool!" kinda look to him.  He wasn't moving for anyone, the traffic was having to manoeuvre around the pony party going on in the middle of the road, and then to compound the problem a couple of Shetland ponies joined the party and it was bedlam!  I suppose if you live in the New Forest this is something you get used to, but for us, it was almost the highlight of our day!

Cycling tour of the New Forest

Monkey World

We decided for our second day that we would take Wurltefkey out and about for another adventure - Monkey World.  I used to take my Son here when he was little and haven't been for years.  Just recently in our downtime Monkey and I had started watching the television show about it, and so whilst Wolf and I were down that way we decided to make a day out of it.  The drive was easier than we had anticipated, the country lanes were much easier to navigate during daylight hours and aside from one campervan confrontation (who calls someone to move forward into a gap and then moves into it themselves??!!??!!) it was infact a lovely drive.

Monkey World itself had changed such a lot, I didn't recognise anything about it, so it was a whole new experience for both of us, which we really enjoyed. There were so many exhibits, with some very weird and wonderful looking primates

Selection of the weird and wonderful

I personally loved watching the organutans, whilst Wolf bonded with a gorilla.......

Bonding with the ape

He even tried teaching the monkeys how to eat ice-cream (badly).....

Wolf and his ice cream disaster

 

All in all we had a great long weekend.  The trip was a complete success, we set ourselves some goals in as much as going out on a day trip in Wurtlefkey, not being tied to the campsite, and exploring the area - all of which we did.  We even managed to make time for a really yummy barbecue, a long walk and the odd game of dominoes - I won, Wolf lost and the forfeit was to make tea for the remainder of the vacation.... Not surprisingly I seemed to have developed quite a thirst that weekend!

 

 

Turtle and Wolf at the top of a really high thing in Monkey World