A trip to the New Forest
In the UK, a lot of us get a four-day weekend for Easter. I don't really celebrate, being a pretty godless person, but it is nice to have the time off. This year we used it to visit the New Forest for a few nights.
The New Forest is actually very old. It gets its name from when it was declared a royal hunting ground by William the Conquerer back in 1079. Ironically two of William's sons later died in the Forest, including William II, who was famously shot in a supposed hunting accident. Nowadays it's a national park and one of the few places you can still see the really old deciduous woodland that once covered much of England.
As well as the woods, much of the Forest also consists of heathland covered in heather and the distinctive yellow gorse bushes. It's a really beautiful place to go for a walk or a bike ride.
The New Forest is also famous for its free-roaming New Forest ponies, as it still upholds the right of the commons for landowners, meaning that horses, cattle and donkeys can graze the land openly. The horses in particular have very little fear and will happily hang out in town or in the middle of the road, so you have to be careful when you drive (or when you walk, so you don't step in the horse poo). Houses will often have cattle grids across their drives to stop the ponies from wandering in and munching on the rose bushes.
We also did some historic sightseeing along with our walking. Beaulieu Abbey was founded at the start of the 13th century by Cistercian monks from France (thus the name) but was destroyed by Henry VIII as part of his historic I-want-a-divorce shitfit. The ruined monastery and its lands ended up in the hands of Thomas Wriothesley, and still belong to his descendant, Baron Montagu of Beaulieu.
We ended up getting a bit more than we bargained for with our visit to the abbey. Turns out the Montagus have turned the abbey and its grounds into one big attraction which also includes the National Motor Museum, an exhibit about how the Special Operations Executive trained its spies locally during World War II (actually very interesting and sent me down a huge Wikipedia rabbit hole later), and, yes, a monorail.
You can also nose around their ancestral manor. The downstairs is a fairly bog standard stately home, but the upstairs has been redecorated by people with far more money than sense and is absolutely hideous. Think circus-themed bedroom with terrifying clown paintings, etc. It was hard for me to capture the hideousness in photos but I present this actual working toilet (sadly off-limits to guest usage) as an example:
You can blame Henry VIII for this.
The next day, we went to the New Forest Wildlife Park. The park specialises in owl and otter rehabilitation but also has some non-native species, including giant river otters, which are my favourite. I love their slightly bulbous eyes and how goofy they look on land. I also failed to get many good photos here so you'll have to take my word for it that the otters were very cute.
Anyway, that was my trip to the New Forest. It was a fun weekend and my feet are tired. I left with fond memories and a really tacky fridge magnet.