Length:
from 17.7 km (11.0 mi) or 25.1 km/15.6 mi or up to 32.2 km/20.0
mi
Ascent/Descent:
from 129/147m
Net
Walking Time short walk: ca. 4 hours, Toughness: 3 out of 10
Net
Walking Time longest option: ca. 7 hours, Toughness: 6 out of 10
Take
the 09.05 Weymouth train from Waterloo (Clapham J 09.12), arrives
Brockenhurst 10.37.
Return
trains:
xx.29 and xx.59 (change Brockenhurst, total journey time 110
minutes).
Buy
a Lymington Pier return.
This
walk is
– for most mortals – a little too short to justify the long train
journey. But help is at hand: an improvised, map-led extension
(or two) just after the lunch pub (I have – with the walk author’s agreement –
added the routes to the webpage for today). The extension leads through
Pennington and Keyhaven Marshes to Keyhaven (pub: The Gun Inn), or even
out via Hurst Beach to Hurst Castle, then back along the coast to the
‘normal’ walk route. [The return along the coast is the reverse of the start of
SWC 62 Lymington – Barton-on-Sea.]
Here’s
the blurb for the ‘normal’ walk:
Although
a good part of this walk is within the New Forest National Park, there
are only occasional encounters with the remote heathland or dense woodland
which you might expect. An early section is in fact through the landscaped
parkland of a now-demolished country house, Brockenhurst Park, and the
walk continues along pleasant broad tracks through Roydon Woods Nature
Reserve.
Shortly after leaving the woods you come to a possible early lunch stop on the
main road between Setley and Battramsley.
The
next section includes the walk's one stretch across wide open heathland at
Shirley Holms, with fine views across the gorse and heather. After crossing
Sway Road, you leave the National Park and the walk becomes less distinctive
for a while, past farms and stables with occasional distant glimpses of the
Isle of Wight. Eventually you come to the scattered hamlet of Lower Pennington
and the alternative lunch pub.
The
final section to the attractive sailing resort of Lymington is quite different in
character. You walk along raised embankments between mudflats and the coastal
marshes of Lymington-Keyhaven
Nature Reserve,
with magnificent views of the Isle of Wight across the Solent. Now a haven for
wildlife, this area was the site of the Lymington Saltworks, the
country's leading supplier of sea salt in the 18thC. The industry
only ceased (in 1865) when salt could be obtained more cheaply from mines in
Cheshire.
At
the end of the walk a lucky few might be allowed to sip pink gins at one of the
town's exclusive yacht clubs, but there are plenty of other places willing to
serve us hoi polloi before the longish train journey home.
All
Walk Options’ Walk Option:
You
could extend the walk by 1½ km, passing the Walhampton Monument and returning from
Lymington Pier instead
of the Town station.
Tea: Pubs in Lymington.
See the webpage or the walk directions pdf for details.
9 comments:
For some flavour of the Extension-within-the-Extension, by some happy coincidence it was Christopher Somerville's walk of the week in yesterday's Times: http://www.christophersomerville.co.uk/?p=1938
Many thanks to Thomas for not cancelling any of the walks.
Sincerely appreciate all that you do for the club.
Yes. Thank you, Thomas. This is not a slight on the schedulers who did cancel as both points of view are valid.
Think Thomas is being irresponsible
Some strong feelings there, Anonymous at 18:12... Unsurprisingly, I am with the second last comment, to me it is perfectly valid to keep posting walks, as we're dealing with adults who can make up their own mind on whether they want to join or not. We're not an arm of the Nanny State.
But the majority of walk posters disagree (some vehemently so) and so, in the interest of a common SWC approach, this walk is now cancelled as a group walk. I will not cancel other already posted walks until nearer the time though, and then only in light of the situation at the time. Sincere apologies to anyone interested in joining a group walk.
#keepwalking #whatwouldnicholasdo?
It's absolutely the right decision for this club not to encourage people to form groups at present. The government's decision to ask everyone to avoid gatherings was based on stark new data released yesterday by Imperial College.
Even with these measures in place, the current data suggests 20,000 deaths will be a "good outcome" compared to the circa 250,000 deaths expected if we do nothing.
We all want to suppress the spread of the COVID-19 virus and protect peoples' health and to support what is going to be a very difficult effort.
Links below to the latest modelling for those who may be interested in reading more. Stay safe and I sincerely hope we will all be out walking again in future.
Summary report:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/196234/covid19-imperial-researchers-model-likely-impact/
Full report:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
Summary article in the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/new-data-new-policy-why-uks-coronavirus-strategy-has-changed
Fine, I'll stick to my usual routine of casual encounters on Saturday then. I'm pretty sure that's OK with the guidelines, unless you can point me to the abstinence section?
Are there any nature notes, poems that one can post on swc to keep the spirit up
for anyone reading this, please post all future covid-19 related comments on the respective part of the Forum (the blue 'Forum' tab at the top has a covid-19 thread). Ta
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