UK
30 April 2026
I’ve visited England, if I may call it that, many times since the first visit in 1978 with my parents, sister and brother. Now, arriving in England is like coming home. So familiar and, despite my joking/complaints throughout this travelog, I’m perfectly content with driving on the left. Today, while the ship took on fuel, supplies, and new passengers, the Bowlins and I took a bus (called a coach here) tour of the “New Forest.” Just as Randolph County still calls our 1940 courthouse the “new courthouse,” the Brits have called it New Forest ever since it was set aside as a royal hunting woods by William the Conqueror in 1086, mainly as a place to hunt deer. It’s 112 square miles/289 square kilometers. It was a perfect, sunny day. The bus guide said, “It’s always like this here,” then she laughed, because we know it rains a LOT here.
We saw a bit of beautiful forest, with some trees over 400 years old, but the great bulk of the park is clear cut scrub brush. The Royal Navy cut most of the trees for ship building in 1700s. Though it still is home to deer, all you’re likely to see there are horses (they call them ponies because it’s a short breed) and cattle. They run wild and free over the huge park. Every time the bus passed an animal, the bus would slow down and the guide would point out, there’s a pony, or there’s a cow, like we’d never seen horses and cows before. It seemed ridiculous since a few days ago I was in a similar park seeing zebras and rhinos!
The highlight for me was a 90 minute stop in the beautiful village of Lyndhurst, where I had my first ever scone with clotted cream, which to me was sort of like butter. It also came with a chocolate/hazelnut mixture, Nutella, I suppose. It was delicious with coffee. I’m not ready to try it with tea, but that seems to be how the Brits prefer it. Maybe next trip! We also toured a very nice little community museum that tells about the park.
LYNDHURST HIGH STREET (MAIN STREET) VIDEO
Last October, Linda, David, and I took a test 2-week cruise on Queen Mary 2, traveling 7 days from New York to Southampton. We spent the day in Southampton, then it was 7 days back to New York, just to see how we’d like being aboard “so long.” We enjoyed it so much, we had no worries about doing this 3+ month voyage.
During our day in Southampton, back in October, the only thing we could think of to do in town was to find a good pub and have fish and chips! We liked that so much, we returned to the same pub today, for lunch after our tour of the New Forest.
The pub is named Duke of Wellington, and it has quite a history. The building dates to the 12-hundreds. It was damaged during a French raid of Southampton in 1338, was repaired and damaged again in a German air raid in World War II. The pub’s name had been the Shipwrights’ Arms, but after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 the pub changed its name to the Duke of Wellington in order to commemorate the man who defeated Napoleon once and for all.
We enjoyed fish and chips (french fries) with peas in the traditional British way, and wine and beer, and it was just a perfect time. We Ubered back to the ship about 3 p.m. as the ship prepares to depart for Le Havre, France, where we’ll wake up tomorrow!
