The cream of cream teas

The sun has come out to play. Hooray! To celebrate, we paid another visit to The New Forest. The target: an afternoon stroll around Wilverley Inclosure. The motivation: a highly recommended cream tea!

The weekend before last, we tried out Walk #12 from Jarrold Short Walks in the New Forest National Park around Lepe. This week it was Walk #11. I really like this book. It fits nicely in the pocket and the walks are all well described. (We've not got lost yet, anyway!) They also have a little bit of local knowledge embedded in them including, in this case, a top cream tea recommendation with a detour to The Station House.

For those not familiar with the concept, a cream tea consists of a scone (or two) with cream (usually clotted) and a jam. And tea, of course! (Although you can have coffee if you want - the scone with cream and jam is the star of the show!)

The Station House, it must be said, does a mighty fine cream tea. I opted for the "Porter's tea" - one plain and one fruit scone, with clotted cream and jam, plus a pot of quality tea. Well worth the walk!

The walk itself was a pleasant 4 mile round trip through the trees. Following a few days without rain, the route was not too muddy (unlike last week's in places) with the exception of one point where we had to "ford the Avon Water" - if you are going to do this walk, make sure you have waterproof shoes! (Or a change of socks, I guess.)

Lepe Lighthouse - small but perfectly formed

Today, we went for a little walk near Lepe and one of the landmarks was the Lepe lighthouse. This is not a giant fence or a trick of perspective, the lighthouse really is tiny! Quite pretty, though. The odd thing, it's set back in the trees, so isn't very visible. I thought that maybe the trees had grown up since it was built and it was no longer in use but it was actually only built in 2000. It could be deliberate, though. It was built to help boats get into the narrow entrance to Beaulieu River, so I guess it only needs to be visible from a specific direction.

The Master Builder's masters of fish and chips

The sun finally came out this weekend. Hooray! To celebrate, we went for a walk near Lepe from the book Jarrold Short Walks - The New Forest National Park. It was a lovely stroll (if a bit damp in places) and I can recommend the book if you live in/near Hampshire.

The highlight of the day, though, was lunch. Back in April, we stayed for a night in The Master Builder's at Buckler's Hard, and had a very tasty dinner in their restaurant. In the Yachtsman's bar before dinner, I had spied some impressive portions of fish and chips being served to other patrons and made a mental note.

The last stretch of today's hike was along the beach near Lepe Country Park, which left us very much in the mood for Fish and Chips, so we thought we would find out if the Master Builder's fish and chips tasted as good as they looked. They didn't. They were better.

All four of us had the fish and chips and the general consensus was that the fish was perfect - light, crisp batter and perfectly cooked chunky fillets of fish. Probably the best I have ever had and, growing up in a seaside town, I've had my fair share of fish and chips! The tartare sauce was also spectacularly good. I'm not sure how they made tartare sauce taste so nice but they nailed it. The chips were not quite so spectacular but certainly nothing wrong with them. The only slight let-down was the mushy peas. I love mushy peas and these were a little on the hard end of the spectrum. They weren't the worst I have had, though, and the fish and tartare sauce more than made up for it. Highly recommended. (Service was quick too!)

Water meadows, water voles and watering holes

Today, we got some good fresh air on the Water Meadows walk in Winchester, returning along the Itchen Navigation. This is a lovely (and flat!) stroll of about 7-8km or so, the highlight of which was a water vole that swam along right next to us before having a quick preen and disappearing into his hole.

As an added bonus, we arrived back in Winchester at the right time and place to try out a new watering hole for lunch, in the form of the Bishop on the Bridge pub. This is a pub that I have managed to overlook on my many previous visits to Winchester but it does a good range of beers and has a good menu too.

I'm a big believer that you can tell a lot about a pub's fayre from its burgers and, after a nice stroll along the Itchen, I was in the mood for a good burger; I was not disappointed. I opted for one with cheddar and mushrooms and it really hit the spot. Although the shrooms were not outstanding and got a bit lost, the burger itself was very tasty; even if it was shaped a bit too perfectly to be hand-made, it was very meaty and juicy (and good value for money). The chips were also great and I think the tomato relish was up with the nicest I have had, all washed down with a nice glass of Leffe blond.

It may have taken over four years to discover both the walk and the pub but I don't think it will be another four years before we repeat the itinerary - highly recommended if you're in the Winchester area.