Day 71 - Sunday 2 March 2003 - Calshot to Exbury

 5.5 miles walked today

778.5 miles walked in total (10.96 average)

As Sam and I drove over Portsdown Hill this morning to get out onto the motorway towards Southampton, we saw a buzzard - what a brilliant start!  The sun was out, the sky was blue and the views were superb - we could even see where we'd got to yesterday.

We were parked at Calshot at 10.40 am and went down to have a look at Calshot Castle, which was built in 1539 by Henry VIII.  We walked around the outside of it - it's very neat and compact and we could see for miles up and down Southampton Water.  At this point, we had fleeces on as it was very bracing, but it wasn't long before the fleeces were off and we were walking in thinner layers.

We had lunch very early - eleven o'clock!  We could see that the tide was in and that we'd need to wait for it to go out a bit before we could get around the foreshore to Lepe.  The sun was very warm and we sat on the beach and watched the numerous yachts that were sailing between us and the Isle of Wight.  Glorious!

After our lunch, we carried on around to Lepe but had a number of obstacles, which found us climbing over and crawling under trees that had fallen off the cliffs.   We found some lovely shells too and generally took it very gently and slowly today, with lots of exploring.

As we came around into Lepe, we found ourselves trapped by barbed wire.  Undeterred, we coolly took off our rucksacks and threw them under and then shimmied under the fencing ourselves.  Bad girls!  We'd walked on shingle all morning and it was playing havoc with our joints so, as soon as we saw a grassy path, we followed it up the (short) cliffs and along the top round to Lepe village.  From an information board, we understood that the name "Lepe" could have come from the fact that there had been a causeway between here and the Isle of Wight and it was just a short "leap" to get across the water.

We'd found some postcards yesterday of Lepe lighthouse so were on a mission to find it.  As it turned out, it wasn't strictly a lighthouse, but a millennium beacon - it was very neat and looked like it could have been in a model village - very pretty though.

From here, we were back on shingle, mixed in with mud and seaweed, around to the Beaulieu River and up to the road, which we followed into Exbury, our destination for the day.   Exbury Gardens is over two hundred acres in size, and has over a thousand varieties of rhododendron and azaleas, none of which were in bloom today!  Sadly, neither were the daffodils, although we'd seen the odd daff and primrose in the hedgerows.

The gardens were hosting an African sculpture exhibition with over a hundred specimens, but, before we went and had a fun couple of hours laughing at some of these pieces, our main concern was for the tea shop!  Feeling refreshed, we were left with a couple of hours to wander around before the gardens closed and we were perturbed that, if we started off in the shop and the plant sales, we'd never get to look around the gardens themselves.  However, due to the fact that I'm potentially about to move to a flat with no garden, I couldn't bring myself to look at lovely plants that I couldn't buy, so we headed straight into the gardens proper.

I've had a fantastic weekend - it's been great walking with Sam - she's always highly entertaining, especially when suffering with too much sun!   And I must admit that, had Sam not been down here, I wouldn't have walked yesterday in the rain.  Sam, you're such a bully!   But thank you!