This morning was rather sad. Once we’d scoffed brekkie Victoria set off homewards. Having recently started a new job she only has limited annual leave. But we’d made the most of the days she had been with us.
Karl and Tracey (and Jess) took her to the train station; we then set off south-wards and parked up in the village of Keyhaven where we waited for them to catch up. Whilst we waited we spent (wasted) twenty minutes looking for a geocache hidden by the local scout group. The thing had been hidden seven years ago. The given hint was now (according to previous finders) out of date, and the people who had hidden this cache had only ever hidden the one and never logged any finds on any others.
As an ex-scout leader myself I suspect that for the scouts who hid it, geocaching is but a happy memory and they have long since moved on to dog training, wig-spotting and global domination badges.
We joined the queue for the ferry and (after a while) sailed out to Hurst Castle; a castle built in the days of Henry VIII to defend the Solent against whichever Johnny Foreigner might have come sailing up it. Despite much of the castle being closed for renovations we had a good look around the place.
And then we wandered round to the beach to find a spot in the shade of the castle in which to eat lunch… the lunch we soon found we’d left in a bag back in the boot of the car. Oh, how we laughed.
But we had a good time on the beach throwing stones to get the dogs into the cooling water.
We then came back to get the return ferry at pretty much the same time as everyone else did. The queue was seemingly endless. But what can you do? We got an ice cream and waited patiently and chatted with everyone else and with the girl from the ferry company whose job it was to pacify the queue. She seemed to think that bearing in mind the amount of time we had to wait (and how hot it was) that everyone was amazingly patient. She said that in the last few days she has had formal complaints about her because on one occasion she was looking into the harbour to point out the ferry to someone, and that on another occasion the tide had gone out leaving only a narrow channel in which the ferry could sail (!)
However I must admit that the ferry company did itself no favours limiting passenger numbers to twelve per ferry when their boats could clearly hold more, but I expect that is “Health and Safety” being completely misinterpreted again.
As we sailed a fellow passenger told us about The Drift Inn which from her description was clearly the best pub in the New Forest, if not the universe. So once we’d got back to England we drove there. We actually went straight past the cottage and on for five more miles to a rather mediocre bar attached to a chain hotel. It never fails to amaze me how so many people feel that dreadful pubs are in any way acceptable, let alone exceptional.
After a pint and some ice cream we made our way back to base for a lazy afternoon and evening. And a rather good bit of dinner…
I took a few photos today.
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