A road trip to Lyndhurst and the New Forest

I have mentioned a couple of times Southampton’s prime location in terms of visiting surrounding areas on the South Coast. Last weekend I had the pleasure of ticking a few more places on my ‘to-see’ list. Although we did the trip by car, some of the places mentioned here are easily accessible by train, so there’s no excuse not to go!

The New Forest has been on my to-see list for a long time now. I originally wanted to go before Christmas to see the Christmas market there, but with no time it had to wait. Christmas or not, the New Forest is definitely worth visiting. Peaceful and beautiful are my two key words to describe it. If you enjoy walks on The Common you will love the New Forest. However, wearing white trainers to the New Forest isn’t the best idea – so the only thing I would say is to bring wellies! It wasn’t raining on Sunday, but it was still quite muddy and wet and most people there got the memo and were wearing wellies. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t, but it makes you very dependent on following the main path. With that being said, the New Forest is huge so it will differ depending on where you go.

A  New Forest Pony!

A beautiful view

This brings me to Lyndhurst! Why have I not heard about this place before? The town centre is so lovely with small shops and family-run cafés - it’s perfect for a little day trip. Among other things, they also have a Maserati and Ferrari showroom there for car-lovers who would like to look at pretty cars. Even I found it very cool, and I’m not too fascinated by cars!

If you are a car enthusiast, Beaulieu is only about 10 minutes away from Lyndhurst. If you haven’t heard of it, it has a very cool car museum. We didn’t go in, as we thought we’d save it for the summer when it’s warmer outside, but this is apparently a very cool place and I’ve only heard good things about it. Beaulieu in itself was also a very nice place to drive around and we somehow ended up in Lyndhurst without noticing, so it’s all very close together. However, this is probably easiest to do if you have a car.

Driving through Lyndhurst 

A trip out to the New Forest is so easy and I would highly recommend it.

On a different note, I know that most students here probably received their exam results yesterday, so I would like to go a bit off-track and just remind you that if it didn’t go as well as you’d hoped, it’s not the end of the world. Don’t let it ruin your motivation for semester two! Remember that the University has plenty of help to offer if you need someone to talk to.

Alexandra