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Beaulieu River walk to Buckler’s Hard

This was a somewhat aborted walk from Beaulieu Road station to Buckler’s Hard – it took so long to get to the river, 5 miles, and South West Trains ‘chaos’ at Southampton (which seems to be a depressingly regular occurrence on that line) made me hours late.

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As I tweeted: “Got to Southampton; usual South West Trains nightmare. All trains via Brockenhurst cancelled, refused to part refund me. Typical SWT fuckup” 4:48 PM – 5 Sep 2013

This meant several things – I was walking so fast I only got a few good photos, the light was failing anyway, and I only got to Buckler’s Hard then had to phone for a taxi later, so I had a nice meal at the Master Builder’s Hotel there, the South African bear seemed happy to have family drop by! I aim to go back and finish this New Forest walk, but need to leave hours early for the inevitable ‘drama’ caused by SWT. I’d just missed the sporadic summer-only tourist bus from Lymington which had just stopped for the incredibly short season, and other buses just stop at the village. I mean it’s not like people might want to go there in, say, September or October, or March, May or April? There’s nothing like, say, ooh a Maritime Museum or a large house with a Motor Museum or anything? No wonder people drive…

“Only got as far as Buckler’s Hard from Beaulieu Road…wanted to go further but didn’t fancy walking in the complete dark… damn you SWT!” 9:41 PM – 5 Sep 2013

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Locals leaving bottled water out with an honesty box. You see, there are nice people… The interesting thing is there are several ‘outs’ from this walk, obviously one direction it’s all the way to Lymington, something I didn’t want to do in the dark without a clear path, but I think the tourist bus visits a few places inland, but a good long walk if the trains aren’t screwed, or you can get the buses from Lymington. The other side you can get buses from Fawley and nearly all the way to the Calshot fort, which it seems Southampton is sprawling and crawling down that side of the Solent…they are hidden as ‘suburban’ services but are surprisingly late and frequent.

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I so wanted to own this boat! *sigh*

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They seem to be very proud of their boat that was in some Bond film, for some reason…looks like the sort of shambles most Harbour Masters and boatyard workers splutter around in.