Today we took a ferry across to Brownsea Island to find a couple of caches hidden over there.  It was a beautiful day in the mid 20s. lovely and hot. Brownsea Island is home to the last of the native red squirrels. We looked really hard but alas, no red squirrels for us today. We did however see these pretty peacocks who insisted on posing for us.

  
  
We found the two caches hidden on the island and placed Bacon in one of them to start his world trip. Ollie was supposed to go but I couldn’t bear to part with him.  Bacon is a pink pig similar to Ollie but pig shaped rather than elephant shaped

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Brownsea Island was really pleasant to walk around. It was great to get away from the hustle and bustle of the Quay. I even dipped my feet in the water, but it caused lamentations of the swearing kind. It was freezing.
 
Here’s some pictures of the day: Departing Poole Quay View out the other side of Brownsea Island.

View back towards Poole

The Easter bunny came. I kicked Mike out of bed to make a cup of tea and he found easter eggs in the tea bags and sugar. We will need to throw it all out now and get the exterminators in. Gawd knows where that dirty bunny has been.

It was the most glorious sunny day and Matt joined us for a less optimistic bike ride today. We rode only 15 miles (about 26kms). We cycled down the ferry at Sandbanks and crossed over to Studland. Studland has an amazing sandy beach, very unusual for England. There is no promenade, houses, shops or anything touristy. Its about a 2km uninterrupted stretch of sand and dunes, very similar to NZ beaches.

Here comes the ferry to fetch us.

Its a chain ferry. I’m always paranoid the chains will snap and we will drift out of control out to sea.

Mike and Matt and Ollie enjoying the brief crossing

A beachy shot

Then we continued on the road a bit to a pub called the Banks Arms. .

The pub had a large outdoor area with sea view but I didnt think to get a photo of it. We had some lunch there. Matt had the ploughmans lunch and Mike had a brie and cranberry baguette. I ate my healthy lunch I had packed.

We finished off the day with a few beers down the quay, then a lovely meal at Oriel. Their garlic prawns are really large, really garlicky, and really yummy.

I think the ride to the New Forest was a bit optimistic. We cycled for 30 miles (50kms) and couldnt even find the New Forest and got kinda lost. after about 20 miles we were both in extreme agony. Sore bums, legs etc. I thought I might’ve been a bit fitter, having been riding regularly for the last few months, but only on short trips of about 1 hours duration.

The ride started out well, with some nice harbour scenery:

Then a gentle forest trail:

We stopped and laughed at all the people in the traffic jam on their way into Poole:

This is an old train line we are riding on. Its been covered up and turned into a cycle track. Isn’t Mikes bum cute?

An old train station. Pity we cant catch the train from here, my bum is so sore.

After another 3 hours riding we found working train station and took the easy way home:

Last night was bike night down the quay. Every Tuesday night in Summer, Poole is invaded by up to 1000 motorbikes of all shapes and sizes.

It was quite a dark evening so alot of my photos didnt come out very well. I will try get some better ones next week. These were about the best of them: