Back To The Palace!

This was last nights mooring, parked behind the Thai pub at Stedham.

We headed off towards London. the first few miles through some very pretty county lanes.

It was then a straightforward drive up the A3 

Once we got to the Crystal Palace site we gave the van a good clean out and vacuum plus washed the sheets. 

Being moored next to the Crystal Palace tower we get a very good TV reception.

On a sad note I was talking to one of the site wardens, he said the site will probably close down in a couple of yeas as the council is taking back the land, which is a bit sad as it is such a good site for visiting London.

Tomorrow we will venture into the city for probably our last time :-(

Up Pompey

Before breakfast this morning, we walked a couple of miles around one of the New Forest lakes ...

It was another stunning, very warm day ...

This pony was having a cooling dip in the lake ...

We had our breakfast and got on our way.  

We spotted this not too far along the road.  Now that's the way to carry a car on the back of a motorhome ...

Our first destination today was Portsmouth.

We parked up and had a walk around old Portsmouth.  We spotted a few people out catching some rays ...

There are some great waterside pubs in Old Portsmouth ...

The distinctive spinnaker tower ...

 This memorial celebrates the sailing of the first fleet to Australia in 1787. There is an identical one in Sydney ...

In the foreground is a Thames sailing barge ...

HMS Warrior, an iron clad warship from 1860 ...

Tommy Cooper was in town ... 

We had a very lazy, long lunch in The Slug and Lettuce and, as it was Monday, food was discounted by 50%....bargain!

We then headed to our overnight stop The Hamilton Arms located in Stedham.

This is probably one of the strangest pubs we have been to to in the UK.  It is run by a very nice Thai landlord and also has a Thai restaurant on the premises.  There are also a lot of Thai furnishings and ornamentation inside the old pub.  Somehow it works!  

Unfortunately the restaurant is closed on Monday.  

Tomorrow we head to London, the UK tour is nearly over :-(

Load of Old Pony.

We had the most fantastic night's sleep in the peace and quiet of the New Forest.   There was a mist across the moorland that gave it a very eerie feel.

This morning the sun came up and soon burnt off the mist.

We went for a early morning walk and met some of the locals ...

I walked across to the local store to get some bits and bobs, but whilst I was away a local, nosey busy body came to the van and told Elaine that we weren't allowed to park there and we must move.  She wasn't swayed by us being told that we could stay there by Big Kev, who she said she had never heard of!  We politely ignored her and had breakfast before leaving ...

As we left the Donkeys moved in ...

We drove for a few miles and parked  up for the day ...

The scenery and walking was sublime.

I will let the pics tell the story..........

We then came across this lovely, friendly little pony ... when I say friendly he was until Bombo got a bit too close and the pony kicked him in the face ... it all happened very quickly!  He was like a New Forest Ninja Pony!  The poor little dog howled like no tomorrow, but Bombo is a big girly and five minutes later he was fine ...

Yet another pony ...

We got back to the van after walking for a few hours.  We had a cuppa and a chillax ... I read a viz comic whilst Elaine made a "steam punk collage" (don't ask!) ... from all the crap she has been collecting over the past week!

It was such a lovely spot to spend the day ...

We were watching these two ponies from the van, they were quite smart and swatting the flies off each others faces with their tails!

Just as we were leaving Elaine nearly wet herself when she spotted a fly agaric mushroom, as she had never seen a real one before ...

She made a little protective fence around it before we left ...

I reckon we should have ate it and gone off on a trip!

We are now moored up at the Turfcutters Arms pub (where we were supposed to stop last night) - but we havn't seen Big Kev tonight!

Morris Men Mania

We left the beautiful forest site at Moreton this morning and decided to head towards Swanage.

We passed through Corfe Castle ...

We parked up in a carpark on the outskirts of Swanage and walked in to check it out.

We didn't know that there was a huge folk festival going on and the place was buzzing with Morris Dancers ...

Elaine loves Morris Dancers and would love to join a troupe one day ...

Even Morris Men need a beer - I bet they all drink real ale ...

The place was going off so we thought we would ring around some sites to see if we could get somewhere for the night.  Sadly there was not a chance, everywhere was fully booked.

We decided we would stick with Plan A and head to the New Forest later in the day, but continued to explore while we still had time in the car park.

Elaine posing by a mural as Morris people walk by ,,,

These ladies were very prim and proper ...

King Charles was out for a stroll ...

Flower headed Morris Man ...

Even the fire truck was a Morris.....really!

It's funny when you take a shot and you don't notice people in the background until later on!

These are the ones Elaine wants to join, the evil looking black faced gang - with sticks!

Mobility Morris Man ...

Of course the other attraction at Swanage is the steam railway.

It's the first time I had seen a Battle of Britain class loco in action, serious anorak excitement!!!

We had afternoon tea outside a lovely little caravan ...

After a day of Morris Men and Steam train excitement we moved on towards the New Forest.

We caught the Sandbanks ferry across to Poole ...

One equates the New Forest with ponies but this string of ponies were sheltering from the sun under a railway bridge, so the cars had to dodge around them ...

We arrived at our destination, Boldre ... I suppose you could call it a one horse town!

We were going to moor up for the night in the local pub carpark, but there was a big party going on in the garden and there was no room in the Inn ...

Elaine got talking to Big Kev, who was chairman of the local football club.  He said we could park up for the night in the memorial hall car park and he invited us to follow him down the road!  He said that if anyone had a problem with it that we should tell them that Big Kev said it was OK. 

So, he delivered us to our mooring spot and left us to it.  It is a fantastic spot about 100 metres from the pub ...

 As we were having dinner a local came across and asked us to move as we weren't allowed to park there.  I informed her that Big Kev said it was OK.  He must have some clout as she said well that's OK then, but don't tell anyone else.

We love Big Kev!!