New Forest

One of the many ponies - all fluffy in the cold weather

It wasn't just Stonehenge that we saw whilst we were visiting Salisbury.  We hired a car and drove through New Forest to the coast.  Salisbury is actually really close to the coast.  And this area is definitely worth a day in itself.  I didn't appreciate this before I visited but in the New Forest it seems all manner of normally domesticated animals roam free.  Mainly ponies, but there were also pigs, deer and donkeys as well.

This one really wanted food, all it got from me was a pat

And when I say mainly ponies there would be thousands of them.  Everywhere you go there are more ponies.  You aren't meant to feed them, but you can certainly tell that in the more popular spots in the forest they are used to serious amounts of human attention.  I wonder if they ever do some sort of pony round up, just to stop them completely decimating the vegetation, or invading the nearby villages and eating all the flowers.

A pony being shy

Even though it is called New Forest, it was created as a royal forest by William the Conqueror all the way back in 1079.  It was new at the time I suppose, because at that point the local peasants were allowed to hunt in it.  Once it became a royal forest, no more hunting allowed.  Like all national parks in England it has seen human intervention for hundreds of years, so isn't really as wild as you may imagine something with forest in it's title should be.  But I suppose for it's location, in that incredibly dense area of south-east England, it's doing pretty well.  It would be cool to head back here in summer sometime and try and head further into the forest, away from the roads, just to see how wild it really gets.  Apparently you are allowed to walk anywhere you want, sometimes there may be signs up asking you not to disturb rare birds, but that's about it.  It's also meant to be the largest area of unenclosed pasture in the country, but I'm not really sure what that means, since I definitely saw a number of fences on my day through there.

We even got a proper sunset for once

There is also a deer feeding area, that looked like the main tourist area, apparently the rangers feed the deer everyday there during summer.  Not so much in winter though, so there were very few deer to be seen.  I managed to get one blurry shot on massive telephoto zoom, but it wasn't up to this blog's standard so you don't get to see it :).  One other slightly morbid tourist site is that Alice Liddell, the Alice from Alice in Wonderland, is buried in the graveyard in Lyndhurst, the main gateway to the forest.  We didn't know this when we visited though, so were more taken by the tarot card reading going on in the carpark.

The sun setting over the sea - not something I see that often

Salisbury Cathedral - with added Magna Carta

Once we had our fill of big trees and ponies we left the forest for the sea.  We popped out near Lymington, which is actually incredibly close to the Isle of Wight.  I don't think I appreciated how close that island is to the mainland, but really it's just a good freeze away from still being connected.  So we got to sit there looking out over the Solent and for once the sun set over sea.  And since it was only about 4pm when it set, we could get back to Salisbury in plenty of time for our awesome meal of scallops and pork belly.

After our trip to the Stones the next day we had a little more time to check out the town before having to head back to London.  The most famous thing about Salisbury (apart from Stonehenge obviously) is the cathedral and the copy of the Magna Carta it contains.  This version is one of the four remaining ones written in 1215, and is the best preserved.  And it really is very well preserved, it looks like it was written yesterday, there's not even much of that tea staining effect you get in old documents.

I love me some cloisters

The cathedral is 750 years old and has the tallest spire in Britain, which is a little mind-blowing (the 750 years old thing).  On the tour to Stonehenge the guide gave us a bit of info when we drove back to town, pointing out Sting's house and where Madonna bought a house and then incited the wrath of the British rambler by trying to get a right-of-way moved.  Let's just say you don't want to take on the might of the British rambler, even if you are Madonna.

He also pointed out where the local "eccentric" lives.  She is a Dame or something and keeps camels.  In the nativity play one year, she decided she wanted to have her camel walk down the aisle as well, and since she is the local aristocracy she gets to do what she wants.  In the end the camel got to the font in the middle of the church and decided it was a bit thirsty.  It hasn't been invited back since.