Hambledon vs the South Downs ends in a Perfect Walk

23rd April 2009

Thursday is Experiment Day! Every Thursday I shall be trying out a new walk in Hampshire (or elsewhere) that is not in the New Forest. Should the "experiment" turn out to be unfavourable, there will be a consolation walk i.e. one I have done before and enjoyed. Given the vagueries of my work roster, Thursday may be titled "Third Day" instead; but it's the same thing.

It is a magical thing about life that very often something unexpectedly wonderful can come from something that can, at the time it occurs, spoil a whole day.

My original plan for this Thursday was to follow another AA walk around Hambledon, a pretty village nestled between two Downs a little north of Portsmouth.

It was another beautiful day. I didn't know anything about the area of Hambledon (I can describe it briefly now having driven through the village on my way home), so I decided I would take advantage of the weather and head out a little further east to the South Downs between Buriton and Butser Ancient Farm.

I will go back to do this walk on another fine day. The walk starts from the Queen Elizabeth Country Park car park (£1 charge for all day parking) and follows the chalk path of the South Downs Way alongside the bridleway that runs through the Country Park and brings you out opposite Butser Ancient Farm. Here, they have constructed an Iron Age Round House and built a Roman Villa. I have not visited the Farm since the Villa was erected, so I was really looking forward to this.

I will not weary you with the ridiculous details of what went wrong. Suffice to say, it did go wrong and it was ridiculous and my choices being now limited due to a freak in my nature, I decided to suspend this particular walk until another day. It is one I would still like to do but in a temper more conducive to such a walk in such surroundings.

Well, I said I would have a consolatory walk planned to offset any experiment that did not work out and so I did, and in doing so I found my perfect walk.

Rather predictably, I suppose, it's a New Forest walk and it has a bit of everything: woodland, Forest views, through gates, paths up, paths down, excellent cycle tracks, lovely forest tracks, over water, through water, across bridges, along river banks. It isn't a very long walk, about an hour and a half, nor is it exactly local, being a 20 minute drive to get there. But it is a walk for all weathers and all seasons. I have walked in this area a lot but this particular route I plotted seemed to work - well, perfectly.

Sometimes these things turn out for the best if you give them a little time.