Highland Water Wander

2nd May 2009

One of my favourite walks with a little difference.

Many are the routes within routes (or even outside them) that can be plotted along the New Forest network of pathways. And it becomes even better when you discover a path that isn't shown on the map.

I can't actually take credit for finding this unmarked path that wanders along the river banks of Highland Water. I only discovered it after spotting a man and his dog walking among the trees close to the river on a previous walk. So today I went exploring and found this treasure that takes you off the main trails. No sound except the water trickling over stones and fallen branches, and birdsong.

Being unofficial and unmanaged, however - probably a pony or forest ranger track - the path is subject to the vagueries of the Forest and the Inclosures. About half way along the course the path becomes lost in deep ruts and channels and the scattered ruins of "forest operations". It may be passable but I prefer to be able to look about me when I'm walking along, and not staring at my feet and the ground.

At a suitable junction I turned left away from the river and up a grass slope to a pleasant path that I hadn't trodden before and, to be honest, only realised was on the map when I checked to see where I was going from this point.

The walk proceeds along a cycle track for a little way before, at a sharp left hand bend in the cycle track, going straight ahead along another grass track up to a gate and out into the dip below Mogshade Hill where there is a ford and wooden footbridge across the Water. From here up to Stonnard Wood and then into the trees again.

I stopped at the bench at Hart Hill for some water and jaffa cakes before descending on to the path and began to wend my way back along hoof-pocked grassways, through gates and over footbridges (across Bagshot Gutter this time), eventually coming back to the banks of Highland Water, studded with violets, celandine and bluebells and with a cuckoo calling in the distance.

And so to the car park and home.