The Ponies of Longwater Lawn...

New Forest mare and a few week's old foal, on the big walk from Ashurst (Hampshire, not Kent) to Lyndhurst, today.

Left home at 6 a.m., got home again 8pm.

Apart from an hour and a half each end for travelling by train to Southampton and change onto the London to Weymouth line for the last bit, I mostly walked around - a lot. The remote parts of which, despite me being brought up in the Forest, but right on the other, western side, I had never explored before.

Spent a couple of hours in New Forest's capital Lyndhurst, eating sandwiches, then chips, then cakes - to get the calories - in the sunshine, chatting to a coach load of pensioners from London and a couple of hours lying in the sun under beach canopies and on the bank of a very young Beaulieu River, it was mostly walking to dodge the wet mud boggy churned up muddy wet bits...

Curlews flying overhead, foxes barking, a white fallow doe (too far away to get a decent shot of) young roe stags that were brazen and just stood and looked at me, brackish brooks burbling, Forestry Commission Enclosures that are the Forest's production line, golfers doing a round and bikes. And folk on horseback. Cattle roaming, white ones too. No snakes, though. Thank goodness..., don't like snakes.

Paths that didn't exist but were on the map and woodland glades that glinted in the late dawn dew. Me falling over on a slippery tree root - scratches on my arm. Posh gravelled cycleways that provided the only guaranteed solid walking but were like motorways through the woods - you want to get on the B roads for the scenery. Bridges that were mere bits of branches. Warnings of WW1 unexploded ordnance; but where, exactly? How come the ponies on Longwater Lawn hadn't been blown up??

This plain ('Lawn' denotes a smooth flat grazing area in the Forest) and this is one of the biggest in the entire National Park. It lies south of the main Lyndhurst to Southampton A337 road. There were ponies in groups, but no more than about 40 spread out over as far as the eye - and my Tamron SP 70-300mm VC lens - could see.

I particularly wanted to catch a young foal for my Blip for you. You sure have to keep your distance, so as not to cause distress. A semi wild pony such as this is as fiercely protective of its young as any and stupid naïve ignorant fools have found to their personal cost that these are not cute things to feed or worse, ride. I kid you not.

There were several foals but this was the fluffiest, youngest and cutest. And nicest colour. Don't say I don't do cute, now, will you??

I walked extremely meanderingly back to Ashurst north of the before mentioned main road, mostly wooded, compared to the big open areas from the morning.

Huge and utter thanks for all the comments, favourites and everything on yesterday's Blip of Tom. I found out when having a pint of coke at the pub at Ashurst waiting for train - the first time I had checked my mobile ALL day, that it got up into the Spotlights. I purposefully haven't replied to any of the comments, except one, which was an answer to a very pertinent point. I felt that I had said enough, the pictures did the rest, plus your kind words, too, of course.

The prints of Tom should have been picked up this morning but I will deliver them first thing tomorrow, now.

Bath now, bed, then back to you lovely Blippers and your Blipping Blips in the morning. Good night folks!