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Southampton 2022 - Aim away! (Day 7)

I have wanted to try archery out for quite a few years. I have never been able to find somewhere close to home that you can dabble at it for fun. After a lot of searching, I found that we could have a go at New Forest Activities in Beaulieu. It was hard to find somewhere that we could book as a couple and not a group of four, but fortunately they could facilitate this. We were only joined by one other couple, so we got to really make the most of the full session as we didn’t have to keep swapping. There is capacity to book up to 12 people on the session, but there must be a minimum of four for the session to run. This would be a warning if you book on an off-peak session. I went into the session fully pumped that I was going to beat Nicole, and that she would think that I am a direct descendant of Robin Hood or Merida. Sadly, this was not the case, I was extremely bad. I think I probably hit the target as many times as the arrow flew past it. It takes a lot of technique. We had a few games through the session, the most memorable was trying to bake a cake. Each colour on the target was a different part of the cake (white = flour, blue = water, yellow = eggs, and red = jam), and if you hit the black that meant you burnt you cake. In the end I had two piles of flour that were badly burnt. Nicole did slightly better but wasn’t able to quite get to something that would resemble a cake. There is a small farm shop on site too that has a nice range of foods if you wanted to stop there. The milkshake was delicious, and we had a couple of the bakery items that were tasty too.


From here, we headed into Beaulieu and took a walk down to Bucklers Hard. The was nice and peaceful. We didn’t come across that many walkers, which always makes things a little bit nicer. Although the walk is along the river path, you only catch a glimpse a few times. We did get a bit lost at one point as the path is sign posted throughout the walk to make sure you don’t take a wrong turn; however, we lost one of these points and headed along the road which extended our walk. When we arrived at the museum we were informed we were the first walkers of the day. It is full of interesting information about the 18th century village and was the place that Nelson’s fleet was built. It is always eye opening to see how much life has changed. You can also have a look at houses that have been set up to represent how they used to live. The houses were small and crammed, but if you have to fit a whole family into a one-bedroom house and you have lodgers, then I guess that is the least you can expect. If you head down to the river, there is a set-up of the Shipwright workshop that has a few videos and more information about how Nelson’s fleet was built. Keep your eyes peeled, there is a discount here that will get you money off in the museum, so head here first. However, if you walk and you take the right path, then you would hit here first anyway. There is an opportunity to take a river cruise on the Beaulieu River. We wanted to take a ride, but it was fully booked as they had a coach full that was booked on. Unfortunately, the next cruise was over an hour away and seeing as it was 3 o’clock we decided to head back into Beaulieu and get back so that we could have a chilled evening before we headed home the next day. 


I always manage to twist Nicole arm to get an ice cream whenever it is an option. Again this was New Forest ice cream which we had from the Queensmead Village Shop. It was delicious. I chose a scoop of strawberry and a scoop of blackberry with a topping of gummy bears and a couple of malteasers (I only got two as they ran out of malteasers and dropped one on the floor!). Nicole typically went for something unusual and had a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of honey and fig, topped with loads of kinder bueno pieces. 

When we were driving out of the New Forest, Nicole made a comment that we hadn’t seen many horses. We got stuck behind some cows on the way in, but no horses. Well, the route we took home greeted us to a mass of horses, they were everywhere. It is nice to see how they can live wildly. I wonder if anyone will notice two miniature Shetland ponies that join them when we set up camp in the New Forest.


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