The New Forest & Bournemouth - a Cycling Perambulation

The journey from Kent to the New Forest by train is something of an epic, although remarkably cheap if you travel along the South Coast via Brighton and Southampton. I alighted at Brockenhurst, with the feeling that astronauts must get after travelling to the moon and first setting foot on the lunar landscape as I headed south along a B-road. My aim was to cycle a former railway track-bed to Ringwood, but a sign said 'Residents Only' (or words to that effect) at the point where it left the road. So I decided to ride a big square to get onto the route further west, encountering my first New Forest ponies under a bridge. I then recapped the eastern end of the track-bed and it turned out that perhaps the sign had been aimed at vehicles rather than bikes, for I passed many other cyclists oblivious to this prohibition.

Resuming a westward course, after a few miles I reached the remnants of a station where an elderly couple warned me so that I didn't ride over an adder. The old man remarked that it looked beautiful, but having never been a huge fan of snakes I politely voiced a counter-opinion! We watched it slither away into the long grass, and breathing a sigh of relief, I continued. Yet, within a few minutes of resuming my ride, I nearly rode over another one. The snake coiled upon itself in defence and I vowed to get well out of this area before thinking about camping. Later, when I crossed a lane, the way it curved up the hillside reminded me of the shape of the snake, but I found this much more attractive (sorry, nature lovers!).

At the end of the track, I turned right towards the village of Burley and took a short cut up Honey Lane (a pleasant name for a muddy track). About six ponies were coming the other way, like a family out for an afternoon stroll. After more lanes and a short resurgence of the track-bed, I headed into Ringwood. A hiker asked me for the very specific amount of £1.50. Thinking he might be homeless I took pity, but afterwards felt that I might have been conned. It's always so tricky to know what is the right thing to do in these situations.

To the south of the town, the railway route continues westward, now named the Castleman Way (or Castleman Corkscrew due to its circuitous route to take in as many towns as possible between Brockenhurst and Poole). It bridged a few rivers and was a straight, lightly forested route, at times running as two trails side by side.

I decided to stop at a pub in the village of West Moors. Relaxing with a pint, I took in the vibes of the radio station which was playing non-stop rock classics. The bar staff said they receive mixed opinions from their customers but thanked me for my complimentary feedback (guitarist's pun intended). I enjoyed a healthy salmon dinner before moving on.

The route beyond deviated from the old rail route, using various woodland tracks, eventually steering me onto the main road into Wimborne Minster. At Leigh Common, I headed into the woods in search of a camping spot. There was a trail on a wooden platform over wetlands – the longest of its kind that I've seen. I eventually made my bed beside a fence. Some young men in fields nearby seemed to be getting drunk, and when they went quiet, some noisy teenage girls started shrieking with merriment. Naturally, I kept as inconspicuous as possible until my eyelids grew heavy and the revelry subsided.

It amazed me that the footpath behind the fence was busy even before it got light. After some dozing, I packed everything away and rode into Wimborne Minster, choosing a Polish cafe for a traditional English breakfast. I had a look inside the minster before taking a course southward from the town, accidentally frequenting the ladies' - twice! The funny look I got the second time was what gave the game away.

Rejoining the track-bed, which now began a long descent towards Poole, tiredness began to encroach, so I stopped for a rest in a wooded glade near where the path bridges the mighty A35. I used my rucksack as a pillow and actually dozed, dreaming in sounds only (strange things happen when asleep in the woods!).

After the bridge there were some estate roads (these look the same in every town) and soon after I got a bit lost, finding my way through Upton Park, to a path which ran along the top of Poole Harbour. The harbour is often claimed to be the second largest natural harbour in the world after Sydney. This upper part is also a nature reserve (read 'covered with algae'). When I reached Poole 'Old Town,' I decided to explore. The Lower High Street was very quaint, but further up were all the usual stores (like those suburbs – the same in every town – except in my home town where far too many shops are displaying 'To Let' signs to befit the 'boom town' epithet often bestowed upon it). I returned to a pub in the quaint part and took in the vibes of the beer garden, after watching an elderly couple drink up rapidly and leave having been blasted with rave music from the juke box inside. I knew it was a mistake when they came in and sat right beneath the speaker.

The next part of the ride along Poole Harbour was the day's high point, with views to Brownsea Island (site of Baden-Powell's first scout camp) and the Purbeck Hills across the water and a pleasant green ever to my left on the landward side. However, disappointment followed at the end of Shore Road – I wanted to ride the sea-wall to Bournemouth but bikes aren't allowed on the esplanade in July and August. An RNLI collector ventured, 'You're probably wondering why we are here?' I replied, 'To be honest I'm wondering if I can bike along this sea-wall!' His response was informative, so I put some coins in the bucket before pounding eastwards along the leafy cliff-top roads instead, gently curving, with a suspension footbridge over one of the 'chines.'

I breezed through Bournemouth and on to Boscombe, where I saw the first signs of High Street decline on this trip. I imagine that Internet shopping is to blame for the traditional High Street's struggles along with the perpetual recession and the continued policy of lower tax for businesses locating out of town. I also saw a 'Doctor Who' style police box at the start of the pedestrian area. Maybe such a TARDIS could whizz me back to a time when our High Streets were buzzing!

The rest of the ride took me through interminable suburbs as far as some woodland near the village of Hurn. Here I made the pivotal decision to go home. The threat of rain for most of the next day was one reason, but I was also nearing the New Forest again; as the afternoon progressed I would soon need to find a camping spot and there is a ban on wild camping across the whole of the New Forest (and who would want to with all those snakes?). So another adventure drew to a close. There are plenty more to read about in my book, 'Stair Rods and Stars.' The digital editions of most my books are now free, so if you've enjoyed this narrative, why not have a look on Kindle, iBooks, etc. and go 'the full cycle?'

New Lighthouse Visits Part III (Isle of Wight)

The final installment of the Isle of Wight adventure:

Our ferry was not due to leave the isle until around noon, so I suggested that we make use of the morning by walking the trackbed of an old railway line, which I’d heard has been converted into a footpath cum cycleway.

I am particularly fond of these paths. After all, the gradients are shallow, they bring tourism into often overlooked areas, and they provide a glimpse of our once rich rail heritage that we have squandered for our singular love of the motor car.

Since the 50’s, we have built our lives around the car rather than the car around our lives. When the oil runs out or the planet boils (whichever comes first), we may well reassess the wisdom of this. The film 'Who killed the electric car' is a real eye opener as to how the oil companies and their puppets (politicians) simply won't allow us to find a way out of this predicament. Enough said.

Our ramble along this particular rail-trail was actually not dissimilar to a career in politics: The white-painted fences and brand new bridge across the path near Wooten Bridge promised great things, so off we trekked towards Newport, with the sonorous birdsong and buzzing of insects mingling around us in the hedges and trees. The straightness of the route and a glimpse of an old platform and station-house told us that we were definitely on the right track.

Then a little further, a sign directed both cyclists and ramblers off of the trackbed, but unperturbed, we carried on doggedy sticking to our 'mission statement'.

Then the route narrowed and became rather overgrown, but I was used to this. What I wasn’t ready for was the sudden termination of the trail, with a death-defying drop through the frame of a metal bridge for anybody who stubbornly dared to continue. We sensibly descended to the lane below the conventional non-suicidal way, wandered up to the main road to view the traffic, did a U-turn and returned from whence we came. End of parable.

On our way to East Cowes, we passed Queen Victoria’s hallowed retreat of Osborne House. We had a reasonable wait in the queue for the ferry, so I decided to treat my father to a final blast of the Wurzels’ excellent ‘Golden Delicious’ album before leaving the rustic isle.

This ‘cider and farming’ music had provided the soundtrack to our last few days, for the Isle of Wight seemed just far enough west for me to have an excuse to play it. My dad pointed out that their chorus of ‘You’re a short time living and a long time dead’ was a great piece of philosophy. Seriously, where else could you hear such cerebral reasoning for downing a bucket-load of cider?

Back on the mainland, we switched to Radio 2, and a particularly bland edition of ‘Pick of the Pops’ emitted forth.

This institution consisted of Dale Winton running through old top tens. Nowadays it is Tony Blackburn in the chair and Prior to Mr Winton it was Alan Freeman, and way back in the dark ages, Jimmy Saville.

The particular week being looked at in 1975 seemed almost as dull as today's charts of plastic music may seem to many over 30s, proving the old maxim that the public isn’t always the best measure of quality. For example, if there was any justice The Kinks’ “Arthur or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire” would be one of the best selling albums of all time, as opposed to just a record with one of the longest titles.

This would be in the same parallel universe where Van Gogh gets to sell more than one painting in his lifetime, Al Gore would have got to be president instead of George Walker Bush [original pun omitted on grounds of taste] and 'Mud Sweat and Beers' can be found sitting comfortably next to the 'Bill Brysons' in all major bookshops!

All these things are out of my control (perhaps I should rewrite some new lyrics to that old standard ‘If I ruled the World’) but one thing that I did have influence over was our route home, for this time it was me behind the wheel. There would categorically be no boring M25 - we were doing the A272!

Pieter Boogaart points out in his excellently produced book ‘A272 – Ode to a Road’, that this tarmaccadam conduit may have once been an alternative to the ‘Pilgrim’s Way’ because of its alignment from Winchester towards Canterbury. There is evidence of this on an old wooden fingerpost near Newick in deepest Sussex, giving a distance of 63 miles to Winchester and 68 to Canterbury.

I found the first thirty miles or so very pleasant, with pretty villages, rolling hills and even an old brick railway tunnel to drive through.

We made just one stop, this being in Midhurst, where we encountered the most disgusting toilets I have ever been in. We are talking loo-roll strewn across the floor, rude daubings on every available space of wall, and a pungent smell that defies description. My dad suggested that the staff sitting idle in the tourist office next door could also be employed to pop in and do the odd bit of cleaning. He has a point, as this does give a very mixed message to visitors, doesn’t it?

Well, I’m not going to ramble on about the A272 and how it is generally not a very expedient route from Hampshire to Hamstreet (the village in Kent we were bound for), neither will I muse on how I think that it should seize the A265, which continues where the ‘272 abandons its course, and make it its own. There is a perfectly adequate book on this road, resplendent with glossy photographs available already.

If you have enjoyed these chapters, you may wish to put 'England and Wales in a Flash' into Amazon or Google and take a gamble on a purchase. The sequel 'Bordering on Lunacy' will be available early in 2011 and humorously documents our hunt for lighthouses, haunted castles and the arcane border in Southern Scotland. There is also the aforementioned hiking tome 'Mud Sweat and Beers' and a collection of surreal, dream-like stories entitled 'Seven Dreams of Reality'. Here concludes the commercial break. I may return with more erroneous lighthouse tales soon.

- Adam and Roger Colton

New Lighthouse Visits Part II (Isle of Wight)

Day 2 of the Isle of Wight lighthouse tour:

The first light of the day was supposed to be at Egypt point, at the far north of the island, but it was actually my dad sparking up his first cigarette as we watched the boats running up and down the River Medina. A nearby clock chimed, setting us on our way.

Egypt point is thought to have got its name from a group of sixteenth century gypsies who inhabited the area and were known at the time as ‘Egyptians’. It was less than half a mile up-river from our hotel, but due to the conspiring of the road system, getting there was like driving through one of those mazes where one has to begin in the opposite direction.

We descended from leafy suburban lanes to an empty, tranquil coastline with a wide, curving, ‘made for coaches’ road around it.

The lighthouse is little more than a beacon which operated from 1897–1989. It consists of a thin red tube upon a squat cylindrical base, with a white, square box perched clumsily on top, anchored to the ground with a few white-painted struts.

From here, we continued westward, with the road narrowing into a tiny lane around the coves and the village of Gurnard. Moving away from the sea, things became more pastoral, with green fields and woods in abundance. We were perhaps getting a glimpse at the ‘real’ Isle of Wight, away from the tourist trail at last.

This respite was brief, for soon we were joining the slow-moving traffic on the A3054. This is the island’s principal east/west route, and I mischievously wondered how things would be if a six-lane M3054 was built to deal with the traffic. Imagine doing 70mph on the Isle of Wight – you would be able to cross the whole island in under 20 minutes!

Of course, it is the diminutive size of the island that protects it from such modern intrusions. It wouldn’t take a lot of building to dramatically alter the feel of the place, hence the only new housing projects we would spot were relatively small.

We waited for several sailing boats to pass the raised bridge at Shalfleet, and briefly detoured up a private road to try to catch a glimpse of Hurst Castle and its lighthouse on the mainland, visible across the Solent. There was a small development of salubrious homes (read ‘Yuppie residences’ if you wish) at the end of the lane from which to point our camera lens before continuing via Yarmouth and Totland to the Needles – the island's most westerly point.

At Alum Bay, there is a car park and a small theme park with a breathtaking chair-lift ride over the cliffs, famous for their multiple layers of coloured sand. After attempting to hard-sell 'England and Wales in a Flash' to a friendly car-park attendant, we stomped off up the combined footpath and bus-lane that runs out along the grassy headland for around a mile. And boy, was it windy!

At the point where the white cliffs disintegrate into a series of chalk stacks, we savoured our first view of the lighthouse, directly ahead. In front of it stands a fort built in 1862.

The red and white striped lighthouse rises 102 feet from the sea and has a helicopter landing pad on top. Built in 1859, it replaced an earlier cliff-top lighthouse that was forever shrouded in mist. The present light stands beyond two brilliant white chunks of rock which rise out of the sea like chalk icebergs.

As we explored the southern side of the headland, we became entangled with a large group of elderly tourists, swarming like bees around the viewpoints, giving off a general hubbub of conversational small talk.

A smoothly curving concrete wall is all that remains of a former engine testing site for rockets (used from 1956–1971). The launching tests themselves took place on the other side of the world in Woomera, Australia. These weren’t the only experiments to be carried out in the vicinity. Back at Alum Bay, a plaque marks the location of the former wireless telegraph station where Marconi did a bit of tinkering around in the late 1890s.

Having absorbed all these facts by cranial osmosis, I glanced around to find that my dad had vanished over the top of the hill, drawn zombie-like towards the old keeper’s cottages - a terrace of four or five dwellings. Rather cheekily we wandered around the backyards, and some of the occupants even chatted to us. But once the approaching babble of voices chanting ‘rhubarb rhubarb’ could be heard, we quickly descended back to the path for fear that we might get swept up in the melee and find ourselves bundled into a Shearings coach bound Bournemouth!

Our next port of call was St Catherine’s Point at the southern corner of the island.

The A3055 follows the coast from west to south to east, effectively a scenic alternative to the A3054. The eastern half of this route consists of a series of popular holiday resorts from Ventnor to Ryde. The west side is very different though, being the island’s most sparsely populated quadrant.

At one point we were diverted onto lanes where the cliff road was subsiding. The terrain became quite wild, resmbling moorland, with the tall hills of the south ever-present on the skyline.

The turning for St Catherine’s is just beyond the village of Niton. We parked opposite a charming little pub in a leafy hamlet and walked along the lane to the lighthouse, descending panoramically to open fields. Our tour guide and his wife were ready and waiting.

Like the Needles light, this octagonal 1838 lighthouse replaced a much higher structure, but even this new light was often shrouded in mist, so the tower was eventually lowered from 120 feet to 86 feet by removing several sections of it.
A second shorter tower, open at the bottom, with tall arches, was added to house the fog signal in 1932, looking like something from an M.C.Escher painting. Both towers have turreted masonry.

Before we went to investigate the light's predecessor, it was time for a pint. The dusky wooden interior of the pub provided a mellow ambience for us and a solitary fellow drinker. Pubs like this have so much atmosphere that they seem cosy even when empty, yet other busier pubs, according to a friend of mine, have about “as much atmosphere as a municipal lavatory”. Sadly it is the more rustic kind of pub that seems to be under threat the most.

We returned across the pretty lawn to the car, accompanied by gentle birdsong, and backtracked to Blackgang Chine, where there is a theme park nestled between the cliffs. Our theme was merely to park the car and climb the steep, desolate footpath on the opposite side of the road.

My father’s heavy strained breaths were lost in the intensifying wind, and at last we reached the 1323 oratory which looked like an octagonal stone rocket with its pointed top, perched on one of Wight's highest points. The sides even look as though they are adorned with stone booster rockets! Bar the 46 A.D. ‘pharos’ in the grounds of Dover Castle, this is England's olderst standing lighthouse

It all came about when a ship from France crashed nearby and its cargo of monastic wine miraculously disappeared and ended up being sold to the islanders. The pope ordered that the culprits build a lighthouse to stop further ships crashing, as penance (and they were expecting a dozen Hail Mary's!). Consequently the tower has even been used as a chapel.

With the late afternoon sun still bright, we drove inland, passing farms until we reached the main road at Godshill.

Carrisbrooke is joined to Wight's capital, Newport, by unbroken housing. Yet somehow it still maintains the character of a busy tourist village. The pub we tried didn’t really fit this notion of quaintness though, with three shaven-headed thirty-somethings providing a continual flow of bawdy masculinity. This wasn’t quite what we were looking for!

And so we returned to Cowes and poured ourselves into a wooden seat to peruse the menu. In my best French accent I ordered the moules mariniere.

Stunned by the huge mound of black cracked shells I was presented with, I proceeded to extract the tasty mussels from within, while my father tried to ply me with additional food, stating that a plate of under-nourished whelks wouldn’t fill me up. After his breathless gasps I'd witnessed on that barren hillside earlier, I took this advice, like my meal, with a pinch of salt!

If you are enjoying these 'lighthouse tours' but fancy something a little more polished to read, 'England and Wales in a Flash' humorously documents our visits to every lighthouse around the mainland coast. It's sequel 'Bordering on Lunacy' covering Southern Scotland will be published shortly. Also available are 'Mud Sweat and Beers' (hiking/humour) and 'Seven Dreams of Reality' (dreamlike fiction). Track all 3 down on Amazon!

- Adam and Roger Colton

New Lighthouse Visits Part I (Isle of Wight)

I have recently been working on two new books.

For details of Seven Dreams of Reality (dreamlike fiction) and Mud Sweat & Beers (non fiction - humorous hiking adventure) check out Amazon.co.uk or email hamcopublishing@AOL.com. One of the proposed new books will be a sequel to 'England and Wales in a Flash', which sees my father and I continuing our mission to visit lighthouses around the mainland coast with a foray into Southern Scotland. As a result, a handful of chapters documenting our visits to a few random lighthouses In England have had to be jettisoned, not quite in keeping with the theme of a book on Scotland.

Rather than waste them, I have decided to edit out some of the more raucous humour and lengthy observational passages (for that you'll have to buy the book) and include the chapters in this blog over the next few months. We begin with Day 1 on our visit to the Isle of Wight.

Joining our queue to board the Isle of Wight ferry, we broke open the ‘Yuk’ milkshakes [a reference readers of our first book will understand] and augmented its milky goodness with some chicken legs, slices of bread and a pork pie that we cut in half with the end of a Biro, not being in possession of a knife or any good preparation skills.

Once upon the ferry, we decided that it would be more pleasant to spend the journey upstairs plotting our course across the Solent, rather than while away sixty minutes in a small hatchback. This was a sensible idea, as the vessel had all the amenities that you would find on a cross-channel ferry (except duty-free of course).

So we ascended to the blustery observation deck, where we were rewarded with an attractive ride into Cowes, with its bright white vessels lining the River Medina, which is like a crack running half way into the island. The sight of the buildings creeping up the surrounding hills as though trying to escape gave a pleasant ambience. This was a gently scenic introduction to the island, only spoiled by my obligation to repeat the old joke ‘What’s brown, steams and comes out of Cowes backwards?’ Answer – the Isle of Wight ferry. The colour scheme has changed since those days.

We docked at East Cowes, a shady village, marooned from the main town by the river, easliy crossed using the ‘floating bridge’. This is what the islanders call a small shuttle ferry that saves the motorist, and indeed the pedestrian, a 12-mile expedition by road.

The River Medina sounds more like a waterway in Spain than on the Isle of Wight. In fact, it is true that the island is not without Iberian influence. After the Stone Age hunters and Neolithic farmers, the Spanish arrived and settled. There would be further influxes of in-migration to come, culminating with a couple of post-modern lighthouse hunters in 2003AD. (By the way, what will they call the post-post-modern era?)

The island, 23 miles from east to west and 13 miles from north to south, was originally joined to Dorset. This is logical really, as the chalk cliffs that disintegrate into the sea at the westerly Needles match up rather neatly with the white cliffs across the water near Swanage.

Cowes is of course famous for its regatta. At the time, a report stated that the people here feel ostracized from big business, and that there should be a drive to encourage such things. The downside is that the place could then resemble just about every other town in the UK. Is this really so desirable? 'What can be so bad about a little bit of individuality?

Our inn had an archway beside it that can be driven through to reach the quayside. We had pre-booked our stay; my father had seen a recommendation for the place in a real ale guide, and that was enough to send him scuttling to the phone to make an inquiry. However, there were no real ales on offer today, so we had to make do with a pint of Guinness which we quaffed by the window, watching the people wander to and fro on this cheery afternoon. A newsagency seemed to be the catalyst for these movements.

My dad Christened our lodgings 'the garret room’, for we were positioned up three or four flights of stairs. This brought to mind a vision of a reclusive author hammering away on an old typewriter by candlelight.

Now to me, the Isle of Wight is a bit like a miniature inverted replica of England. This is because most of the population is crammed into the northeast of the island; whereas on the mainland we shoehorn everybody into the Southeast. Similarly reversed is the topography of the landscape, with the hillier terrain in the south on Wight, whereas in Blighty Major it is the North that is renowned for its uplands. Interestingly, this area of downland can even be seen from Portsmouth and Southampton, making it look as though the Solent isn’t there at all.

Newport, in the centre of the island, possesses the isle's only dual carriageway, this being a mile of the A3020 to the north of the town centre. The town also contains that other great British hallmark – the multi-lane ring road. It is here that one encounters that other stalwart of British life - jams.

The 125,000 islanders own 70,000 cars between them. This increases dramatically in the tourist season and is certainly exasperated by the fact that a once expansive rail network has been whittled down to a single line along the East Coast. At least you can still get a ‘ticket to Ryde’ I suppose!

The nine-mile road journey from Newport to Ryde felt more like fifteen. Here we checked out the island’s only outlet of a high profile pub chain (at the time of our visit, at least). We opted to sample Ventnor brewery’s ‘Oyster beer’. This dark, slightly sweet bitter was the finest we would taste during our trip, and is apparently made with real oysters.

The open-plan pub, located in this seaside town of amusements and fun fairs, was heaving, and conversations knotted themselves into a wall of sound around us.

Although the beer was strangely moreish, this was enough procrastination. It was time to talk ‘lighthouses’ and wend our way to Wight’s most easterly point, across lush, undulating farmland to St Helen’s village, then on past a bay filled with yachts and sailing boats, to Bembridge, a village with its own little one-way system.

Eventually meeting the coast, we parked near a large ‘chain’ hotel surrounded by lawns so neat you wouldn’t dream of stepping on them. It was here that we noticed that the Solent was littered with flat-topped round towers, sticking out like water-borne ‘Martellos’. These Victorian era forts were built to defend the Solent from another perceived French invasion threat (1860s).

I’ve heard that one of these was sold as a bijou residence around the time of our visit (2003) for six million pounds. 'Was it worth the money?' I wonder. Great place to live for peace and quiet; not so great for running out of milk and popping to the local shop!

Standing by the lifeboat station, we moved our plane of vision a few degrees southward and around five miles out to sea, onto a hazy black cylinder protruding from the deep. This was the Trinity House light of Nab Tower, a 90-foot high, 40-foot wide cylinder, designed as part of a defence scheme to protect the English Channel from invaders, which began its work as a beacon in 1920. It was staffed by three keepers until 1983.

The bright sky gave our squinting eyes an effect similar to snow blindness. The distance was too much for the telephoto lens on my video camera to cope with, so we cannot really count it in our tally of lights and felt vaguely unfulfilled during our journey back to Cowes.

Tiredness began to encroach at a rate of knots, and just two things grabbed our attention during our truncated evening at our inn. The first was a ‘Back to the future’ machine. This was just a glorified quiz machine really, but nice to encounter anyway, as I have long thought this trilogy of films to be vastly under-appreciated.

It was holed up in our garret room that we had our second surprise. The only tea bag left for our edification resembled a four-inch-wide parachute. My father managed to dip this unwieldy object into the two cups for long enough to infuse something drinkable from it.

Like I said earlier, it's good to be different!

- Adam and Roger Colton