 filled with peculiar treasures, like a large colourful tapestry that takes up most of a wall, and an old telescope which has clearly given its owner much delight. I’m glad to have met another fascinating individual on the road.
It’s very sunny and hot today in Bournemouth, and the September weather is unseasonably seasonably hot. We walk down towards the town, which is even more affluent in appearance in the daylight and without the shouty drunk lads. It has a massive town hall and Victorian gardens which are both large and opulent without conceding anything to the ‘majesty’ or ‘grace’ of the people, workers, citizens, or what have you, the kind of dedication one might find on a municipal building of similar ambition in South Wales or Glasgow. People play tennis in proper whites (I know! We laugh to each other, not like our local park…), and with a degree of competitive seriousness, whilst others loll about on the grasses of thin parks beneath vanity clocktowers straight out of the fairy tales of 19th century gentry. Its shopping precinct is neither fussy nor selective, nor struggling with poundshops, charity shops and to lets, at least that we see, and there’s a number of well-to-do restaurants and bars that reinforce the moneyed feel to the place. In the Tesco, where I pick up food supplies for this day and the next, I’m told by one local that the town is a nice place to live, ‘easy to get by’ in. It depends on tourism, and so winters can be a little tough, but there seems to be substance to its affluence.
Like other seaside resorts, there’s little history to the place. It was established as a business venture at the beginning of the 19th century, following the new health craze for sea-bathing. Like most other British seaside resorts, its success was based on the railways, but unlike the resorts of the north or south-east, it doesn’t seem to have hit a slump. It has been repurposed as a university town, a hub-town for the region, absorbing Poole and Christchurch on either side, and as a centre for corporate and political conferences. The town regularly returns Conservative MPs, and was the first town centre in the country to feature CCTV cameras (though also, in fairness, the first town to build a municipal beach-house!). One might add, ‘despite the low crime rate’, but as I’ve found across these islands, the fear of crime often seems to increase in proportion to the affluence of an area.
We wander under a random and regrettable ugly concrete underpass that cuts directly between the town’s square and its seafront, and head towards the beach, a white open space-void with large tourist businesses like Aruba and a pier competing for attention. The sands are golden and filled with holidaymakers, and the beach is full. Today would be a fine day to just stop here, and sit on the beach. Alas, my sister’s heading back to London, and so am I, only my route will take about a week, and her’s about three hours. We say our goodbyes and move off, and after several days of companionship and adventures, I’m a little deflated to face the next stretch alone. But some extraordinary places lie ahead.
I cycle up through Southbourne, then out through Christchurch, following a busy A-road that consists mostly of petrol garages, car forecourts, Travelodges and massive supermarkets, occasionally interrupted by sweeping roundabout, like moreorless everywhere, distinctly indistinct, utterly modern. It’s also hectic with traffic, so I’m glad to eventually pull off in order to explore the New Forest.
Aah! Back among the blessed groves, the narrow lines with tall hedgerows, fresh-tilled fields and golden hay curled in great wheels. I hear a distance pip pop! of clay pigeon shooting as I ride deeper and deeper within, among clusters of woods that merge together and becomes the thick and verdant forest the name suggests. Foliage spills out over everything, green mosses concealing signs that once indicated villages. On one roadside, a large and inexplicable arrangement of standing stones. The only recent evidence of human life, aside from the occasional McDonalds paper-cup which seems to grace every obscure rural spot (is there some kind of social media photo-adventurer competition happening, I wonder?), are threatening warnings from the Hampshire police I later see on the Isle of Wight too, ‘you are being watched’. Even here, this lovely place, one cannot be free from this aggressive interference and imposed paranoia!
The thick hedgerows are only occasionally interrupted by large country homes. I ride through Wiverley Moor and then Hinchelsea Moor, vast and exposed expanses of heathland, punctuated with bracken and the occasional random rock flung about, with occasional groups of horses drifting across the road. It’s a chance to take one’s breath after the lush forests, but this point here, past Holmsley and close to Brockenhurst, is as breath-taking as the New Forest gets on this trip (which, what I mean is, it’s lovely, but after wondrous Dartmoor, it’s just lovely). I take a stop in Brockenhurst, a twee village where packs of donkeys freely roam around, or just stand still in, like the cheeky creatures idly loitering in the roads as cars queue. There’s a small parade of shops obviously catered to tourists, RSPB birthday cards and chintzy ornamentation on sale. It’s a Sunday, and there’s a number of cyclists resting their lubed and lycra’d buttocks against the wizened brick of a country boozer whilst chewing on a laboratory-designed protein bar, washed down with some kind of neon-coloured liquid. I regret having not met and spoken to more cyclists on my travels, but often I just don’t where to begin, and, as they eye up my gear or lack thereof, and assess the state of my ride, and its owner, nor do they. So we keep our distance, exchanging a polite nod as we pass.
I head into the Buttery Inn for some local mint ice-cream and a water refill. I’m served by a local girl still getting the hang of a job that doesn’t involve animals, and she happily tells me about the place. She loves the animals that rove around, and takes pleasure in wandering and exploring this large expanse that always seems to retain a bit of something unknown, somewhere that seemed to be familiar which then gives way to a strange and unusual location. Such is the stuff of adventure. It’s quiet by most standards, but she feels quickly linked to Southampton and to London. Whilst many businesses depend on tourists rather than local trade, she feels it possesses its own identity and ‘sureness’, one untroubled by social problems or grievances of any obvious kind.
Really? Apparently so. The Forest has been ‘new’ since about… the late 10th century, when William I evicted a few farmers and established the place into his own private deer-hunting playground. Almost all of the park is still owned by the Crown. Very few people live here, but many of those that do had roots with the area going back centuries. Unusually, the land is farmed here in commons, and so many commoners have allowed their creatures to graze here for centuries. Rising house prices and the higher incomes connected with tourism is diminishing that, but not substantially.
The ferry is a quick and pleasant ride over to Yarmouth, an old town on the north-western edge of Wight. Children play under the seats, ‘I’m a spy!’ one shouts, climbing under my seat, sending up all the crime warning signs all over the place. On the other side are assorted bands of cyclists, and I gather from two other riders on the boat that some kind of charity event is on, the main motivation for putting on a high-vis tabard and spandex knickerbockers. This little town looks lovely, with plenty of curious looking boozers to tempt the distracted cyclist. I head into the Kings Arms for a spot of the local Goddards bitter.
Conversation comes freely at the bar. I talk to Jenna, a young woman on the other side of the beer taps. Her air is friendly, animated, sincere yet gentle, and her face is a confusing jukebox of expressions that vary from happiness, to frustration, to disappointed hopes. ‘It’s a very small island. People do know each other!’ The price of the ferries is one prohibitive factor. But the smallness of island life is another concern.  She’s half-French, and has lived off the island too, experiences she’s grateful for – and she adds the latter detail with the emphasis one would expect of a sophisticated university qualification or unusual life-event – but then again, the isolation and homesickness of being away, particularly with education, can drive one back home and then make it harder to leave. Such crises of confidence are difficult to recover from, particularly with the other emotive and reassuring benefits of island life. Islands may be too small, but their smallness can provide a great deal of comfort in difficult times, and those that complain about this smallness are often those who for one reason or another have found themselves returning, not quite ready to leave again.
As I’m waiting to be served, a gregarious but drunk local