The New Forest in Autumn

An opportunity to venture a little outside our area, while still only an hour by train from Reading, this walk will explore part of the New Forest National Park, including a mixture of woodland and more open heath. Hopefully the autumn colours will be out in force, we'll almost certainly encounter the free-roaming New Forest ponies, and if we're lucky may see deer.

The walk begins heading southeast out of Brockenhurst through Roydon Woods Nature Reserve, before entering the forest proper via Lodge Heath and looping around through a series of Copses and Inclosures and returning into Brockenhurst from the northeast across Balmer Lawn. For those seeking refreshment at the end of the walk, or waiting for a train, the Foresters Arms is just across the road from the station.

The walk is mostly on well-made paths and tracks, undulating in places but nothing too steep or sustained, with just a few stretches of rougher ground that could see mud in the event of rain.