White's plantation

We followed the green lane which leads towards Beckley and the edge of the New Forest this morning, past White's and Hobbs plantations. It's been a long while since I walked this way.  The old green lane was always sunken and prone to water logging, over the years it's condition deteriorated to the point where it was often impassible, now where necessary the lane is sited a couple of meters to one side, on higher drier ground and the ditches on the remaining low section kept well maintained. It's lovely walking, proper rural, and in the current climate near devoid of the sounds of man, a different world. I laid down, closed my eyes, breathed deeply and escaped into it...glorious. 

Meetinghouse Plantation

Being locked down, and unable to get out to our usual far flung roams, we've been reacquainting ourselves with some of our more off the beaten track local haunts. I enjoy wandering where we shouldn't, it keeps your senses focused, you're more observant, you're hearing becomes more acute, it's like you tap back into what it was like to human for most history, and you experience the land that little bit more intensely. We're really very lucky where we live to have easy access to a wide variety of environments.

Into the green

For a long time I neglected the forests coniferous plantations, shunned them as artificial, man made, wrongly thinking of them as homogeneous, dark and impenetrable or a least hard going. Of course, coniferous plantations are mostly like that when young, although when they mature they become something else. They become a whole worlds. Take the big coniferous block in the middle of Wilverely (a mosaic of deciduous and coniferous blocks), it's a world of mixed aged conifers with a well developed under-story, woodland you can get disorientated in, where you glimpse views through the stands only to lose them with your next step, you're not allowed to see too much at one time. One minute you're in relatively open stands, tall mature trunks reaching for the sky, next you disappear into a densely planted section, only to emerge in a secret secluded grove. The whole block is like that, magical. It's strangely peaceful too, whilst simultaneously so very much alive. Another beautiful thing about this world is that you can move through it almost silently, years of needles and dense moss have created a cushioned carpet, and you can just slide through the low hanging boughs. It's a wonderful sensation moving through like that. The smell too, that clean fresh conifer scent, and where parts remain continually shaded, there's always a petrichor-esque smell. You feel earthed, and grounded in their evergreen confines. Over the last few years I've become attached to the coniferous world. I see it very differently now, or rather I see it as I do the deciduous woods, many of which are also in part or entirely the consequence of human agency. More and more I seek out these less walked areas, criss crossed only by animal tracks (the only paths to travel), you feel alone with the trees and their woodland inhabitants. I find them areas where I can better connect, places where the tranquillity better facilitates contemplation and meditation.   

Hidden green worlds

I've mentioned before how the mosaic nature of Wilverely enclosure allows for endlessly different walking combinations within the same enclosure, if you plan well you can walk through only deciduous or pine, or mix it up. Today we entered the mossy green world of the pines. You'd think of conifer plantations as being uniform, and they often are, although in the centre of Wilverely is a large mosaic of conifers of different varieties and ages, and it makes for immersive  walking. The mosaic of conifers has no man made paths, though it's criss crossed by myriad animal paths which wind through and between tightly packed low boughed young trees, open mature tall pine stands and everything conifer in between. A striking feature of these woods is the lush and verdant green moss which carpets the floor. When you're used to walking the open heathlands or open beech and oak stands, this enclosed world is interesting and stimulating. 

Tree prison

It's not right. They're all forced to stand in lines in the tree prison.

Misty morning

Some mornings the forest is just so cool.

Uniformity

Uniformity

On the road...

On the road back in time. I though I'd explore a different aspect of Cranborne Chase on today's walk. I parked up between Gussage St Michael and Gussage All Saints and took 'Ackling Dyke' the Roman road the 4 or so miles to top of Wyke Down, where I sat a while on one of the prominent barrows and took in the full majesty of a landscape steeped in millennia of human activity. Well, it would be rude not to. But for an ever so slight kink just before you reach Harley Gap, the course of Ackling Dyke is, as you'd imagine, quite quite straight.  Build around the mid first century AD Ackling Dyke is your standard (ish) Roman road, it's constructed on a substantial Agger (embankment), about 15m wide at the base, with the road surface would be about 6m wide, and on either side would have been a broad drainage ditch. The section which runs for nearly 2 miles through the Drive Plantation is stunningly well preserved. The Agger shows few signs of degradation, the road surface still, for the most part, flat and the drainage ditch and low outer bank are clearly visible (on the woodland side, other side mainly ploughed out). Quite wonderful. The road would have given the local population a strong message, 'we are Rome, and this is all ours' type of thing. The road cuts through all manner of prehistoric features, features which although probably not visited any more, still held sway in the folklore and imaginations of the people.  Just like our colonial railways, the Roman roads weren't benevolent gifts to improve the lot of the locals, they were for communication, military and exploitation purposes. Ackling Dyke was certainly made to impress, and two thousand years on it still does. I really recommend this as a walk, I've not seen a better preserved length of Roman Road. 

Vernditch stands

Vernditch Chase beech stands, a naked army ready for action.

Down and out

I walked for about 250m across Little Holm Hill through one of the coniferous plantations which form an expanse of mosaic coniferous/deciduous woodland in this part of the forest. The devastation caused by storm damage was remarkable. The woodland is all but impassible, a jumble of trunks, canopies and upturned root-balls, leaving the walker disorientated and confused. I'd say around 40% of the trees were down. This wasn't done in one storm, though nor had this extensive damage been done over years, no, most of this looked like in had occurred over the last 2 years, say.  I've seen this happen in other parts of the forest.  First a tree or two goes down, weakened by the extremes of wet and dry they're easy prey for todays' stronger and more persistent winds, now a chink has been exposed each following storm has a way into the stands and once in they wreak havoc creating more weak points to exploit. And, so the pattern goes on until the woodland is decimated. I fear as climate change intensifies we'll only see more of this. A sad sight.

Sterile

The sterile nature of the coniferous plantation.

wasps

Some brave, desperate or stupid woodland mammal has dug down and raided this wasp nest in Burley Old enclosure. I wasn't aware it was wasps until I got quite close, at which point I took my photo, withdrawing quickly and stealthily.  Me and wasps have history. I was okay with wasps until I had a free paper round in my teens and thought it would be a good idea, as you do when you're a lazy good for nothing teen, to dump my papers rather than delivering them. I was mistaken, it wasn't a good idea and karma struck instantly. My discarded bundle of papers hit a wasps nest, and they were pissed off; I was covered in strings, my arm, hands and face where stings upon stings. Ever since then even a single wasp sting will make me swell; some years back I got stung on the wrist and by morning my fingers had swollen like fat sausages as had my lower arm; I didn't like that. Hence my deft retreat today.

Colourful trunk

Even as the mighty forest leviathans decay that add colour to the woods. Here in Burley Old enclosure, illuminated by the a strengthening Spring Sun, a Beech exhibits a wide range of colours. Greens, blues, greys, browns, reds all are represented. Sadly, my photo doesn't do the colours justice, so you'll just have to take my word.

Worked wood

As much as I love the wilder places, and I really do, I also love to see a managed deciduous woodland. Particularly woodland managed in a traditional way, by traditional means; horses to draw the timber, all the composite parts of the tree used to their best to create numerous products on site and all that, naturally in harmony, products which otherwise would require complexed environmentally damaging processes to produce. I see them as evidence that we can life in balance with our environment, in a sustainable way. What I'd advocate is a mosaic approach with mixed areas of wild and managed sustainable environments. In my model woods would provide us with a wide range of craft and food resources if managed well, they could go toward creating more locally produced resource based economies/communities.  I see neglected woodland all over, and for the most part I love them for their wildness and embrace their re-wilding, though I am also heartened to see an increase in woodland being brought back to sustainable productivity. Balance, man, that's were the future lays, balance and community.

Stonedown Wood

Arrived out at the Chase in a bad mood today. Pointless arguments and unnecessary stress, what stupid monkeys we are. I took off at stomping pace through the woodland. Walking as with purpose, yet with no destination in mind. Just to walk was my purpose today, maybe with the subconscious aim of out running my problems. If only life were so easy. They always catch you up. The only chance of defeating your problems is to confront them; and even then there's no guarantee. Nature gives you time to think, to reason. It wasn't long before my head began to clear, rational cognition returned and perspective achieved. The healing nature of nature. Wonderful stuff.

Location, location, location.

The air is clean and clear over Martin Down, chilled so you feel it breathing in. It feels great. Centrally heated houses are good, but the air they create isn't so and to be out here is refreshing. The Chase is bathed in sunshine, not yet strong but enough to counter the chill. It's a wonderful landscape. We rise to highest point of Bokerley Dyke, from where we can see it's bank and ditch snaking off through the down. We follow it.  Up and down it crosses the land, past barrows, banks and ditches, past the giant abandoned range butt, and on towards Verditch Chase. Here where the prehistoric dyke crosses the Roman Ackling Dyke, which is not a dyke at all, but the old road from Badbury to Sarum, we leave Bokerley and vanish into woodland.  At first it's thicket, then shrub woodland of the type common on chalkland, then into the woodland proper with its older trees and the, relatively, modern mosaic plantation of Verditch Chase. As we've walked we've collected the natural material to start a fire, now seems like a good time and place for a bit of fire starting practice.  The material are prepared and the trusty sparker deployed; the Travellers Joy employed to take the spark was too damp in parts, but the reliable Birch bark ensures success and with the addition of the other tinder we have a fire going in 3 minutes. Not bad at all. The fire smokes at first and carried by the breeze it fills that stands, though soon clears to a clean flame. It's good to practice your skills, and easy to become complacent. Wandering deeper into Verditch Chase we spied a ramshackle shack in a open area set in overgrown woodland. No track led to the shack, no paths, it is just there. Nice location though. It looks like nobody has used it for some years and it's beginning its decent into ruination, the timbers are rotten and the whole structure leans. Inside it's dry and mostly bare but for the usual mix of oddities you find in such places. Old bit of this and that, old pots, containers, old wire spools and stuff.  We leave Verditch crossing Ackling Dyke again. We're now in open grassland. In the distance we can see Bokerley Dyke and the route we had taken out. The days walk was nearly complete.

Harvest

Pine harvest time in this plantation. Stack after stack of graded timber, all marked by height and length ready for sale. Whether the land now freed is returned to timber or left to re-wild we'll have to wait and see.

The Giants toothpick

The Giants toothpick. Well, it might not be a giant toothpick, but it put me in mind of one. If Giants used toothpicks. With a couple of feet wedged firmly and deeply into the memory of Old Burley enclosure, its years of rich detritus, this pick shaped shard of Beech still stands 5ft or so high.  Again I'm wowed by the power of the forces exerted through nature; it must have some storm to splinter and project this substantial piece of tree.

Verditch Chase

Walking through Verditch Chase, a mosaic forestry commission wood with plantations of young Beech all under 100 years, I was reminded that much of the mature Beech woodland I walk in the New Forest once started like this; easy to forget when marveling at the leviathans we see today.  The stands are close, the trunks uniformly straight, with most side branches cropped; the woodland floor is spartan, deep in years of leaf litter and as I walk, a new layer is forming all about as the brisk winds rustle and loosen the remaining leafs. The leafs which remain form a golden hued canopy, which even on a drab day lighten the woods and lift the spirit. The place is almost silent, almost, but for the mournful cry of a bird of prey circling up above out of sight, beyond the canopy. Tranquility.  Winter is almost upon us and even though the wheel still turns it will appear to stop; for a while at least.

Stands

I wonder, what will become of our forests? Our beautiful forests. I know most of them don't remain in their natural state or form, well in the sense that much of our forest has been planted since 1700, with the exception of the recognizable ancient open woodland. Though back before our Neolithic ancestors began slash and burn farming, trees would have covered most of Southern England if not most of the country and the wild wood, dense and tangled, would have held dominion. Can you imagine it? But our reckless ways will see what's left of our ancient and modern woodland, our beautiful forests, slighted and in all likelihood destroyed. I know, after the fall of man, left to her own devices mother nature will reclaim what she's lost. But still, I can't help but be sad to think of what we are prepared to sacrifice.