Bickton to Ringwood

We’d been staying with our daughter and her family, but today was free for walking. Unusually, this coincided with almost perfect weather for walking; it had turned much colder but it was dry and sunny. It was an ideal opportunity to return to the Avon Valley Way, more than a year since we were last here. The only real problem was that impossible to avoid getting wet legs and feet. This was probably made worse by morning dew and rain at the end of last week, and it was undoubtedly made worse by the fact that my winter walking boots need replacing, but I am not in a hurry to do so after all the problems I’ve had with my feet this summer, because these boots are actually comfortable and I have managed to avoid blisters since our walk along the coast through Durham, Tyne & Wear and Northumberland in July. However, it is worth noting that prior to last week’s rain, we’d had a dry spell, and although the River Avon looked quite full, and some indications were that it was, other indications were that the water levels weren’t particularly high. In summary, we don’t know whether it is actually possible to keep dry feet for the whole of this leg, in other than exceptionally dry summer conditions.

We parked the car in a very convenient piece of gravelled rough ground on the Hyde Lane side of Bicton Cross Roads on the A338 (SU154126) and set off walking around 9.15am. We retraced our steps from the last time we were here, through Bickton, around by the former mill and over the many channels of the river. Water was pouring through the sluice near the mill, our first indication that water levels might be high. We rejoined the Avon Valley Path at SU146129, turning left along what was initially a reasonable footpath.

The path became rather overgrown, and then it became distinctly squelchy and muddy, largely because they appeared to have been  using a vehicle of some sort to clear the vegetation. It was also a little difficult to find the correct route in places, though we managed. It was something of a relief to reach a turning onto a footbridge and, at the far side, to climb to a track on slightly higher land. The track led to a minor road near North End Farm and, somewhat fed up of wet feet and trousers, we decided to turn left and follow the road for the short distance round to Harbridge Green, rather than taking paths across fields to the same place.

The villages, hamlets and isolated buildings we passed today were a mass of "quaint and picturesque" thatch etc., and Harbridge Green was no exception. The photograph shows a thatch filial, crafted in the shape of a pig, on an archway, with the thatched roof of the cottage behind. Back on the Avon Valley Path,  track led us past some rather grander houses, then a path along a field boundary (not around the field, which is what's shown on the OS map) led us to the hamlet of Kent. But we were definitely in Hampshire! 

We'd had occasional views to Harbridge Church to the south-east, frequently hidden by trees, but as we turned onto a path past Harbridge Farm, there was lots of interest to look at: grazing horses, a man clearing logs from the field, assisted by four small dogs, and an old threshing machine in a barn.  From here, we again noticed Harbridge Church, now to the north-east.  A track led us east to where a ford is marked on the map. Fortunately there's a sturdy footbridge by the ford, but we then needed to cross water meadows back to the main braid of the River Avon, and the water meadows were distinctly squelchy. It was otherwise not unpleasant walking, with yet more views to Harbridge Church, now to the north and then north-west and now with Harbridge House visible in front of it.

After squelching our way across the water meadows, we reached the river (photo shown at the top of the page), which we followed along to Ibsley Bridge. The bridge took us across the river, then we crossed the main A338 and continued on the other side on a path which led us between two flooded gravel pits. The one to our right was attractive enough, though the direction of the Sun made photography impossible. There was a family with two dogs walking a distance ahead of us as the path meandered its way between lakes, houses and mobile homes; we overtook them just before emerging onto to a more minor road. We were back in the New Forest National Park and it was delightful, with pigs grazing by the road. The family overtook us again as I was photographing the pigs, but as they passed us, they pointed out the onward route, which was kind of them.

From the road we climbed up the hill in front of us (Summering Hill), still following the family. Even though the visibility was spoilt by smoke from a chimney of an adjacent house, it remained very pleasant walking and it led to the best bit of today's walk. Towards the top of the climb, we turned right in front of a house and followed a path through a more typical New Forest landscape of trees and bracken. We had good views over the Avon Valley to our right, including several lakes in what are presumably flooded gravel pits. 

We descended to a country lane and I think the family we'd been following went a different way here. We continued straight ahead and stopped for lunch sitting on some felled logs from a tree, with lovely views. We said hello to another couple of walkers, again with dogs, then again continued straight ahead through the woodland, eventually descending and taking a path to the road near Moyles Court School. 

For the next little section we walked along roads, sometimes on the official route of the Avon Valley Path and sometimes not, but very close to it (and sometimes I'm not sure...). As we reached the road, the footpath sign implied that the Avon Valley Path continued on the far side of the road, but the map implied we should turn left on the road, so we did (we couldn't see a footpath on the far side in any case). This took us past the school, past a turning on the right-hand side, through a little car park, busy with dog-walkers, and over a footbridge by what is technically a ford, but there was no water crossing the road. This made us think that water levels were maybe not that high after all. We turned right immediately after the ford, then took the first left to and through Rockford, though part-way along this section of road we realised that we should have been on a track the other side of the hedge on our right-hand side, but we couldn’t get through to it. Ah well, we’d learnt our lesson: at the next junction, we were careful not to turn right onto the road to Blashford, but rather to take the footpath on the right just past the junction.

From here, the path meandered its way around the flooded gravel pits to the north of Ringwood, starting with Blashford Lake and ending with Kingfisher Lake. Our daughter and son-in-law, who walked the Avon Valley Path some years ago, had been annoyed by this section, which our son-in-law had described as being on a narrow path between fences. Initially, we wondered what the fuss was about; we were separated from Blashford Lake by a chain link fence, but we could see the lake, with dinghies sailing in the distance, and we couldn’t have got decent photos in any case, because the sun was in entirely the wrong direction. We passed Spinnaker Sailing Club, and had a better view to the lake here, though the sun was still in the wrong direction for photography. After this, there were indeed sections where the path was constrained what felt like too much and unnecessarily, and it got increasingly irritating. There was a nice section where we were walking alongside Lin Brook, but from around here onwards, we were separated from Kingfisher Lake by a high fence with fabric attached to prevent us blebs even seeing the lake. Why oh why? People had cut occasional small holes in the fabric, so from time to time we could see what we were missing.