Gads Cliff

I'm drawn to this part of the coast, its beauty, its rawness and its awe inspiring views in both directions, make it a walk which stirs the spirit and lifts you. Wild under the winter Sun, which scurries over the land when clouds allow, the grasses move with the ebb and flow akin to swirling waters, driven by a brisk chill wind which negates any warmth the Sun may have to offer. And you stand transfixed, like a rabbit in a spotlight, the smile on your face comes from somewhere deep inside. There's something in these places, something beautiful, something beyond the obvious, something you can't articulate or put your finger on. Love it! 

Kimmeridge

Lovely.

Worbarrow Bay

Worbarrow Bay, right in the middle of the military range area is a deceptively deep anchorage. The shingle beach, popular with the more adventurous holiday makers in the summer months, gives way to about 6m of water almost as soon as you enter from the shore, although I wouldn't have advised going for a swim today.  It's a good bay for snorkeling, with plenty of sea life to be seen. During the Second World War the whole area was cleared to be used as a training area in preparation for D-Day, before which it had been the site of a quiet fishing community and center for smuggling for centuries. The patriotic folk of Worbarrow and nearby Tynham gave up their idyllic villages for the war effort on the understanding they would be allowed to return after the war.  Alas, sadly, the government didn't hold up its end of the bargain and the good folk were never allowed back to their homes or lands.  Today it stands in desolate beauty, bathed in winter Sun. 

Washed out

The waters continue to reshape the woodland floor, here on the interface of Great Huntley Bank and Brinken Wood, Highland Water has been flowing well outside its normal bounds. For many meters either side of the stream the woodland floor has been scraped clean by the torrents, exposing roots, creating new water courses and leaving temporary sculpted leaf forms. The new courses get more pronounced every season and eventually could alter the course of the stream, the leaf sculptures will not be long lived though, the next flash flood will see them gone to be replaced by new forms. The forest eternal is constantly in flux.

Deer track

The wet forest makes tracking much easier.  Here a Deer has passed, one of a medium sized group, it's not degraded very much, all the features are sharp, it's very clean and clear and I should think that these Deer didn't pass that long ago.  As it happens we followed the tracks and after 10 minutes came upon a medium sized group of Deer of 15 to 20.  It's not just Deer though, check out the muddy areas, especially the ones regularly cleaned by flood waters, all manner of track can be found and it can be a good exercise in bushcraft to learn which track is which and what the tracks can tell you.  Checking out tracks is another part of immersing yourself in the woods and understanding better the environment you're in and its natural rhythms.

Kinger

The Sun shines over the forest and if you stand for a while, its distant glow does have some gentle warmth in it, although in the hollows and shades where no Sun penetrates, chills mists hang and thin ice covers the shallow standing water that covers parts of the forest.  This piece caught my eye as it reminded me of marbles, in particular the kinger marbles we had as kids. Remember? They always had groovy coloured flames inside of them shaped just like the patterns in the ice.  What simple pleasures we had.

Inundation

It's that time again and Red Rise runs well beyond its banks, inundating the shade. The New Forest in renowned for its rare bog woodland habitats and they've certainly come back into their own after their restoration in recent years. Increasing wetness makes moving about the forest during the wet season quiet a mission, as even the dry bit are wet to a degree and the wet bits are extensive and really wet.  When the forest gets like this, and it can get much worse than this, it's easy to imagine what a perilous environment it must have posed to the pre road traveler. I should imagine that there'd have been times of the year when travelers would have postponed their journeys or taken the a longer route around the forest, for fear of calamity.  

Carnage

Entering Burley Old enclosure my heart sank to see such destruction. I'd been through here a week or so ago when there were already in excess of half a dozen mature trees down, today the sad tally has risen closer to twenty.  Looking through the naked stands carnage can be seen in all directions.  The last year has been harsh on the forest, particularly on the older trees, I've lost count of the number of mature trees have seen slighted.  Throughout the enclosure splintered trunks lay prostrate blocking our progress, cracked boughs ending in masses of jumbled crown create impenetrable obstacles; all change in Burley Old.

Black Water

Black Water through Vinney Ridge enclosure (1700)

Winter Solstice

To the Goddess a Sun is born.

Misty morning Sun

Mmmmm.

Solstice ritual at Knowlton

Another lovely ritual at Knowlton with the lovely folk of the Dorset Grove, this time to welcome the new Sun at the Winter Solstice.  Always a welcome to be had at one of the groves open rituals, as well as some choice cakes as Wildfox, the Groves Arch Druid, is also a master baker.

Morning Stag

Leading a group of 40 or so, this majestic stag spies us with suspicion.  Although protected from the hunter for many years and regularly coming in contact with humans, one man and his dog was still enough to raise an eyebrow or two from this stag and his party. After watching us for 5 minutes or so, nonchalantly at first, then more directly and this fantastic pose, they disappeared slowly over the brow and were gone. What a beautiful sight I was gifted.

Misty Birch

Another day of misty mysteriousness amongst the stands. The Sun streaming through these tightly clustered young Birch creates a look that suggests something magical glows within or a spacecraft has landed on a mission of exploration. Lovely.

Great Huntley Bank

The woods have a mysterious feel about them today; never bad thing.

Brinken Autumn

The remaining leafs fall like rain, creating a similar sound too, soon the trees will be completely bare.  You can see the change, the stands have opened up, vistas expanded so that you see considerably further through the woods, especially as the ferns too have browned and sunk towards the ground.  The leafs of some individual trees have a distinctive colour which sets them apart from the crowd, a show of bright yellow which gives a tree an almost Sun lit appearance amongst the subdued hues of late autumn.

Highland Morning

A glorious morning along Highland Water, below Roman bridge.  A section where the stream winds its way between Brinken and Great Huntley Bank woods.  One of our favourite areas for walking, you can loose yourself amongst the mainly mature Oak and Beech, many other tree species are well represented too, and find a degree of tranquillity. A great place to sit awhile in meditation and listen to the whispering trees and babbling stream.

Wilverley

Wilverley may appear a regular enclosure of ordered coniferous stands, though with a closer look you'll find more areas of mature deciduous trees than at first you may have thought.  The remnants of previous deciduous plantation, from the era when the forest was of great naval importance. If thought out, you can wind a path through this remaining Oak and Beech woodland and walk the older places. A path that unbelievably is nearly 5 miles long.  A great opportunity to meet some lovely trees and always a treat to walk.

Larch

During the summer months you can walk past coniferous trees not differentiating between the wide variety of species found throughout the forest. It's not until the fall and winter that I remember that not all the needled trees are evergreen and that we have a lot of Larch in the forest; both young tightly planted plantations and the more mature thinned plantations as well as a some fine specimen trees. The Larch Larix deciduav can grow into a tall straight tree some 45m high with a 2m diameter trunk.  The wood of the Larch is much priced in yacht construction for its toughness and durability as well as being popular for fence building and is a favorite of Bonsai creators.

Type 25

On seeing the remnants of our World War 2 defences, I frequently wonder how they would have fared against a German blitzkrieg.  Crudely formed in haste, usually from what ever resources were locally available, they were designed as a first defence from a massed German invasion. Operation Sealion, the German invasion plan, wasn't played out in the summer 1940, as control of the air by the Luftwaffe was not secured.  Although, Operation Sealion was war gamed in 1974 at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst by German and British officers, umpired by senior officers of both countries.  After a promising start by the Germans, limited armour and poor resupply, coupled with failed reinforcement led to their eventual failure at the hands of a superior strength British force.  Just a game, luckily we were spared the real thing and we'll never really know how the defences which still remain hidden in hedgerows or are slowly disappearing into the sea would have fared. Though if we look at what the allies did to the massively superior, both in build and design, Normandy defences of  Hitlers Atlantic Wall, our pillboxes appear more for morale rather than genuine or realistic defence.