So many of our guests ask us "where do you go at weekends?"
Well, we do try to visit new places frequently so that we can share our experiences, but we do also have some favourite regular places and activities. Bike riding is one of them and I thought it was about time I wrote down our most regular route.
Starting from Acorns of Lyndhurst B&B we head left down the one way system (Shrubbs Hill) to the forks at the bottom, which is called Goose Green, cross over the green to the Brockenhurst road (A337). A couple of 100 yards along on the left you come to Beechen Lane with the Mid Forest Vets on the corner, cycle down there to the gated end. There are 3 gates, the first (left) heads back towards Lyndhurst via the Beaulieu Road. The 3rd (right) goes to the Crown Stirrup pub on Clay Hill and the middle gate takes you on the official cycle track to Brockenhurst.
In this blog we are taking the middle gate & this is a circular route ending back in Lyndhurst High Street which if you just cycled it without stopping its about an hour & a half cycle (with children). Obviously if you choose the pub crawl version it takes as long as it takes you to visit each of the pubs, and no we don't actually visit all of them. The whole thing is about 10 miles but when you have all day it's easy, even the kids do it. Remember to keep looking around you to enjoy the beautiful scenery and you should definitely see ponies but maybe even deer & in the Autumn some pigs.
This part of the route is all within beautiful broad leaf forest and its all clean gravel cycle tracks. So following this fairly straight bit of cycle track (that does have a couple of hills) to the end, there is a gate on the right hand side - post no. 281. Go down the hill to post 283 then it pretty much levels out through posts 285, 286, 287 & 289. By now you should be at Standing Hat car park. Its down hill again for a bit then it flattens out at the back of Hollands Wood camp site & the Balmer Lawn Hotel. Once you reach the tarmac road, turn right and you will end up at the A337 by the river where on a sunny day everyone stops for a picnic and a paddle.
When your ready you need to turn left over the bridge and continue into Brockenhurst. The first pub stop along this road is The Hunstman (previously the Rose & Crown) they have a beautiful garden and they serve food all day long. The next pub along is the Snakecatcher & again they serve food all day but their garden isn't quite as pretty. Then if you want to squeeze another pub in there is The Foresters which is just behind the cycle hire shop on Brookley Road.
Once you have had enough drinks here you need to start to slowly make your way back home. First head back along the A337 a little bit, to Meerut Lane, it's just after Carey's Manor on the left hand side. Follow this road round past the Cloud Hotel and just before you reach the junction with Rhinefield Road you will see a sandy walking track on the right with a low gate in front. Take this; it cuts across the open meadow past the allotments & leads straight to the other cycle track starting at post no.262. There is a wooden bridge over the river and this is another peaceful place where people stop to enjoy the water, the kids & dogs in particular.
Then continue on through the gate on the other side and take the track veering off to the left - post no.260. This part is also through broad leaf forest and it goes round the back of New Park. Continue along this track through post no. 258 & 257, after that gate you will start to climb a very, very, long, hard hill - it is a killer but when you make it to the top, it feels amazing.
Now you really do deserve another drink and thankfully there is a lovely pub just down the hill in Bank.
Coming out of the gate at the top of that awful hill you join Pinkney Lane, head left follow it all the way down until you see the The Oak pub on the left.
Take as long as you like here it is a lovely place and they too serve food all day. Eventually you need to continue along that road until it joins the A35 Christchurch Road. You need to cross over here and get on the footpath heading right, back towards Lyndhurst. Unfortunately there is another steep hill to climb but it is the penultimate one. At the bottom on the right hand side you'll see The Swan pub. They have a good size garden with a kids play area but it is roadside so can get noisy.
Nearly done now as your already on the edge of Lyndhurst. Cross over to the pavement on the other side as its safer and head right up the final hill and into Lyndhurst High Street. It's up to you now how many more pub stops you make but the first one is the Crown Hotel. We normally go straight onto The Fox & Hounds, who have a lovely big patio area and quite often entertainment. Then carrying on further you have The Workmens Club, The Stag Hotel and right at the bottom The Mailmans.
There are a few variations you can do to this route but it gives you a good idea of what you can do on a nice day in the forest. If you give it a go - I hope you enjoy it as much as we do and we will look forward to hearing about it when you get back; either to us or by reading your comments on my blog. If you need to hire a bike dont worry, our friends at The Woods Cyclery will be more than happy to help.
Mel
Well what can I say? Costa Rica really does do what it says on the tin; Pura Vida means pure life and it definitely is. Whatever it is your looking for in a vacation I'm certain that Costa Rica has it. It's hard to explain in words exactly what it is about this small Central American country but it just grabs you by the heart.
I could go on & on for hours but I'll try to keep it brief......
For us, this was a very last minute decision with hardly any prior knowledge of the country at all, but just a real need & desire to get away to find some sunshine and enjoy some local activities. After reading a little bit about the place I decided to go for it! I booked a 2 week all inclusive holiday to Costa Rica for the 4 of us, 2 adults and 2 children (12 & 7). We arrived on the 12th Dec and departed on the 26th Dec, so we had Christmas day out there which really was lovely.
Our location was Riu Guanacaste on Matapalo beach & it was amazing, can't fault it all. The beautiful gardens led down to the public beach which was never busy. It's a beautiful natural cove with a fairly calm Pacific Ocean rolling on to a dark sandy, very clean beach which we also shared with the Riu Palace next door. There are plenty of things to do from the beach: jet skis, scuba diving, canoeing, paddle boarding, snorkelling, boat trips and also other activities that could be booked from the beach vendors - who I have to say were lovely and very reputable, they took very good care of us at a very reasonable price.
We booked 2 activities with them: horse riding & quad biking, and would have done a lot more if we had realised sooner. Both these activities were in the forests close by our hotel for ease and they were amazing. We encountered 3 types of Monkeys up close on the horse riding: White faced Capuchin, Howlers, and Spider which was fantastic, then we ended the ride with a canter along the beach which was a real bucket list thing for me, absolutely beautiful as well as funny - we all had a really good giggle, such great memories. Then the quad biking was awesome we drove them through many rivers where we had water up over our knees, through all sorts of terrain in the forest & up to a beautiful waterfall with a deep splash pool at the bottom. We took a break here and the brave jumped into it from the top of the waterfall but unfortunately this was 1 thing I couldn't do - it freaked me out standing at the top. Afterwards we then made our way back through the rivers again - this time a bit more aggressively making way more splashes and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.
Just next door to our hotel was an Eco Adventure Park which is home to the longest ocean view dual zip line in Costa Rica, the Superman. So obviously us 4 being a adrenaline junky family had to give that a go. It's 4,461 feet high, almost a mile long and its fast.
We have all done various other zip lines and we all agreed that this one was the best. If you get the chance - do it, it's awesome. The views from up there are stunning too, you can see the Arenal volcano fairly well on a good weather day.
From the Dive centre on site we also booked a sunset cruise on a party catamaran. Originally we had chose this because we had heard that you could possibly see Humpback Whales but subsequently we found out that it was the wrong time of year sadly, but it is true they are found in this bay. It was a great afternoon sailing around some of the many islands in the area, one of them we moored at so that we could all go snorkelling but the visibility was poor with lots of tiny jelly fish in the water, nothing painful but irritating. So we went on to the beach to see the White faced Capuchin's who were hanging around. We had taken bananas with us for the fish but we fed them to the monkeys instead. They were so cute how they come up to take them from you. Obviously you need to be very careful as they can be nasty and carry disease. It was a fantastic experience though. Once back on board we
had a lovely dinner with lots of drinking, dancing and everyone having fun whilst watching the stunning sunset - priceless.
A couple of times we took a small boat taxi round to Coco beach for a change of scenery. This is the closet town to our hotel for all your souvenir shopping and everything else too. A great local place, very real, another great experience.
On another note we also chose to a book a day trip excursion through our reps in the hotel thinking that these would be the best trips on offer but after our experience I would most definitely say - Shop around before you book anything!
We booked their Villa Verde trip which was sold to us as a full day experience at a cost of $130 each which we thought was expensive, but hey we are only here once and we wanted to see Sloths.
We were made aware that it would be about a 2 hour drive so that wasn't the issue but unfortunately we got caught up in a road closure which meant we were stuck in the minibus for over 3 hours, but that was just unfortunate. The real issue was that all in all between the guided tour around Villa Verde (which was very good don't get me wrong & we did see Sloths in the tree tops) lunch & then onto a beautiful waterfall that you could
swim up to and get behind (again very lovely) but it was all too brief. The so called full day ended up being about 2.5 hours of experience which I think is stretching it to say the least. If only we had found the beach vendors or similar sooner.
One thing that became very clear when we ventured outside of the hotel was that Costa Rica is not a cheap place to buy anything, but if you shop around you can barter.
The range of excursions and activities in Costa Rica is amazing and it caters for everyone from adrenaline junkies, nature lovers to sun worshippers. The wildlife and rain forests are stunning, you can actually experience a lot just from the beach and surrounds of the hotel, you don't need to go far. The scenery, landscapes and views are picture perfect and something that will stick in my mind forever. With the sights, sounds, smells & everything we experienced it really felt like we were in one of Sir David Attenborough's nature programmes.
As I said earlier my knowledge of this country was seriously limited before we went but it has so many islands, volcanoes, waterfalls, beautiful beaches and it also has the National parks, it does just keep giving.
In my opinion this is a country that you need to visit more than once as you really can not do everything in 1 visit, you just literally scratch the surface.
Next time, we have already decided that we really want to tour Costa Rica with a hire car using B&B or small hotels to get a much deeper experience of the country. Don't get me wrong the all inclusive hotel was wonderful but you are detached from a full on rain forest experience. While we were there we were never warned about going outside of our complex, or any trouble in the area, and we spoke to lots of people who had been backpacking and touring around so I am confident in saying that it is very safe to do so. The only thing you have to worry about is the wildlife as they do have many dangerous/poisonous species out there, but it is about using your common sense.
It really was a perfect holiday and perfect Christmas with no hassles, no family issues, no stress just glorious hot sunshine, pool swim up bar with cocktails and such a great choice of delicious food. One that we will treasure forever.
Writing this just brings it all back so vividly and I just so want to be back there right now, it really did steal my heart x
Mel
In this blog we are taking the middle gate & this is a circular route ending back in Lyndhurst High Street which if you just cycled it without stopping its about an hour & a half cycle (with children). Obviously if you choose the pub crawl version it takes as long as it takes you to visit each of the pubs, and no we don't actually visit all of them. The whole thing is about 10 miles but when you have all day it's easy, even the kids do it. Remember to keep looking around you to enjoy the beautiful scenery and you should definitely see ponies but maybe even deer & in the Autumn some pigs.
