Wild Camping With Animals In New Forest Van Life UK

Wild Camping with Animals in New forest Vanlife UK

Wild Camping with Animals in New Forest - Transcript


[00:00:00] [Applause]


[00:00:02] Kez: Action. Hi guys welcome back. We pick you up at black water. 


[00:00:09] Trist: We're in the New Forest.


[00:00:10] Kez: We have been Meandering around the New Forest.


[00:00:12] Trist: well we've been here for a couple of weeks now haven't we? yeah we came to


[00:00:14] Kez: Yeah


[00:00:15] Trist: Came to the New Forest we were just going to do BritStops weren't we? Because I think originally when we' looked we kind of come to Milford on Sea area. But a lot of the New Forest there's no overnight parking signs in a lot of car parks. Especially this time of year I think you're going to get the knock quite a lot. This time coming we were like oh we're BritStops members so we're going to stay at some BritStops. But haven't yet, might do one today. 


a white camper van is parked on a grassy hill near the ocean .

Where have we stayed


[00:00:37] Trist: Yeah we had a little search on the internet. 10 of these sites 


[00:00:37] Trist: Yeah we had a little search on the internet. 10 of these sites 


[00:00:38] Kez: They're low-cost campsites, without showers. Couple have toilets. But they're basically in the middle of the New Forest. So you're camping with ponies and donkeys and cows. Been campsite hopping and exploring every single little trail. Came once before years ago. Then somehow in all of our travels in Leo we seem to have bypassed this area and I don't know why. It's absolutely it's like being on a Countryside Safari. So you imagine when you're driving through and there's lions and tigers and bears oh my. But here you got like cows in the road ponies, donkeys trying to come in your van.

They're low-cost campsites, without showers. Couple have toilets. But they're basically in the middle of the New Forest. So you're camping with ponies and donkeys and cows. Been campsite hopping and exploring every single little trail. Came once before years ago. Then somehow in all of our travels in Leo we seem to have bypassed this area and I don't know why. It's absolutely it's like being on a Countryside Safari. So you imagine when you're driving through and there's lions and tigers and bears oh my. But here you got like cows in the road ponies, donkeys trying to come in your van.


Wild Animals


[00:01:13] Kez: Yeah you just it feels it feels like you're not meant to be here it feels yeah yeah. The New Forest campsites are amazing. All of them perfectly placed for pathways, bike tracks, meandering off into the woods.


Two donkeys are standing next to each other in a grassy field.

Pathways


[00:01:25] Kez: You’re spoiled for choice. 


[00:01:27] Trist: In total, we stayed at three of these sites. We stayed at Roundhill, Ocknell, Long Beach.


[00:01:32] Kez: Do you want me to rate them


[00:01:33] Trist: Yeah go on


A dirt road going through a lush green forest.

Kez’s Campsite Review

[00:01:35] Kez: Okay so out of the three we stayed at. The least favourite would have to be Long Beach. The reason being. On the map it looks much bigger than it is. But actually, you drive quite a way into the New Forest before the campsite begins. Because it's a bit like this actually. It's completely covered over by trees. A lot of the ground is bogy. Few of the spaces were a bit sort of difficult to get into. And there was Zero wildlife. We didn't really see any did we when we were there.


[00:02:01] Trist: Couple of horses 


[00:02:04] Kez: Couple of horses. That's nothing 


[00:02:07] Trist: That's nothing in the New Forest. 


[00:02:09] Kez: So then our second favourite would be Ocknell. Although it doesn't look as pretty. It's a lot of hard standing. It's actually quite cool. The uh runway for World War II used to run alongside the campsite and where you actually can camp in, are the turning spots for the World War II planes. But if you're in a tent or a camper van not a motor home. You can tuck down into what's called The Glades. It's just these different sort of grass pitches just snuggled right in. Then just a few steps into the New Forest I mean every bit of wildlife you could think of deers with the antlers deers without antlers


[00:02:44] Trist: Stags 


[00:02:47] Kez: Stags. So that's the second favourite one is Ocknell. They have a toilet, Long Beach don't I should add. Then our favourite campsite we've been to is Roundhill.


Roundhill


[00:02:55] Kez: That is stunning. It's huge I mean you'd be you'd be hard-pushed to be camped next to someone. There's just so much space and the wildlife is incredible. It's just yeah every morning, every field is full. The animals don't care about you. They just want to go on their merry business and it's just so beautiful to watch. The horses are hilarious or ponies I should say. They like to queue outside the toilets.


A pony is drinking water from a pond.

Horses outside toilets


[00:03:22] Kez: Never quite sure why. But yeah that's a bit of a dodging game in the morning. But it's beautiful. It's got a little pond the kiosk there sells New Forest Ice Cream. Well, you discovered these sites didn't you?


[00:03:33] Trist: I think when I'd looked on park4night before. Every campsite seemed to be sort of 25, 28, 30 quid and all kind of like back-to-basics camping. But we're going to charge you 30 quid and I thought that was quite a lot personally.


A brown pony is standing in a field next to a wooden fence.

How much do they cost?


[00:03:48] Kez: It's £15.50 for two adults in one unit on a weekday £17.50 on a Friday and Saturday night and then the same on the Sunday for the bank holiday weekend. They're open with all of them by one site actually um. All close in September. So if you do want to get down and enjoy these sites then make sure you do so before September Ends. Setthorns is open all year round and they also have electric in the winter I think it’s.


[00:04:14] Trist: £14.40 for non-electric 


[00:04:17] Kez: £21.60 with electric. That again is quite covered over. It's more in the woods of New Forest so I think. That's the difference between these campsites some are shaded because they are actually sort of in the woods. Whereas the rest are more on the heathland. So for example Roundhill is right next to the heathlands. 


Pig Brewery


[00:04:34] Kez: You've got a half-hour walk up to The Pig Brewery. Which is definitely worth a visit. On a lovely day it's a beautiful walk. Or you can go straight out on the heathland. We did about a 3-hour walk just meandering around. There are bike paths laid through most of the New Forest. Which make for beautiful tracks to walk. As me and Trist often say. When you're rambling through the woods you're constantly looking where your feet are going. So you don't fall over. So to have a nice laid path. That makes me sound very old or supersensible. It means you can look up and you can actually see what's going on around you. Which yeah in the New Forest is always something everywhere. Also to mention at Roundhill which we got to see that we didn't see at the other two campsites is. I want to call it a Pine Martin. It looks exactly like a Pine Martin but it's about this big. Is that a Pine Martin? They're very happy little creatures. One we saw doing a little dance across the field and he's somersaulting and he was so excited. Is that a pine Martin? I know they're quite dangerous but or is it just a little weasel thing? I don't know let me know. Little brown body with a little white tough here. Very cute.


A wooden table with pig beer written on it

Disaster Strikes


[00:05:40] Trist: Ran out of gas last night didn't we?


[00:05:43] Kez: Uh yes that's always going to happen to us though. Because we can't store two gas bottles and gas bottles aren't seethrough. If anyone knows of like a gadget that tells you when you're running out of gas that would be awesome. Yeah, we ran out of gas.


[00:05:58] Trist: And there was a hardware store which is where we got our Calor Gas replacement from. But it looks like they sell everything that you'd ever need if you're in a Campervan or Motorhome so get yourself in there streets are mongers I'll put it up underneath and show you where it is.


[00:06:12] Kez: But that's also a good tip. If you do run out of gas and you can't find any local shops in the area. If you go on to Google Maps and just literally look up petrol stations and then go to the satellite view 


[00:06:23] Trist: Yeah, street view.


[00:06:26] Kez: Street view and you can literally just look on their forecourt if they sell gas. That has been a fail-safe. 


Brockenhurst


[00:06:33] Trist: Went to an award-winning bakery, didn't we?


[00:06:37] Kez: We did and it says it all across the front of the shop in case you weren't sure. But yeah it was banging wasn't it.


[00:06:41] Trist: Oh I had my sausage roll 


[00:06:43] Kez: I had a, they didn't have many veggie options. They had a cheese and onion pasty and they had a spiced vegetable pasty. Which you might think for breakfast but it was oh. It was really nice, wasn't it? Brockenhurst is a lovely little High Street. We popped after being in the bakery across the road is a butcher and a tiny fishmonger in the butchers. I think they going and catch their own. Um and then next to it is a greengrocer. So we got like a massive slab of watermelon 60p 


[00:07:12] Trist: And a couple of apples.


[00:07:13] Kez: And a couple of apples. So yes you could actually do a little round robin.


[00:07:21] Kez: Hey guys where do you now?


[00:07:25] Trist: That's a great question Kez we head to Scotland. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the channel and hit the Bell notification to check out next week's Adventure. Until next time folks. Bye for now.


A group of people are standing outside of a bakery.

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