Date: Location: Distance: Parking: Lunch: | 8 March 2018 Wareham Forest 6.5 miles The Silent Woman by permission. The Silent Woman ★★★★☆ |
Wareham Forest has a good mix of made up cycle tracks and sandy tracks with good drainage.
The kind folk at the Silent Woman were happy for us to park there while we went on our walk and the Brunch that we had on our return was excellent.
The track into the forest starts a few yards up the road from the pub and is guarded by a couple of enormous stones preventing vehicle access. We weren’t too sure how good the path around the edge of the Bog area would be but thought it worth a try. It turned out to be a bit wet in a few places but we never had any real problems.
It was interesting to see how the scenery changed from the dead straight path through the conifers that took us down to the Poole Harbour Trail to the wide open boggy ground of the bog. A few trees have tried to find a place to survive in the bog but they find it a tough existence.
We started to look for a comfortable stopping place as we passed the Lookout Tower by Decoy Heath but ended up carrying on as far as Decoy House before we found a good spot. We had a brief look at the area by the beehives but the bees were quite active and we gave that a miss.
It looked as if there was an unmarked path leading to the west where we had taken the sharp east turn toward the second Lookout Tower. After our break we went a short distance down the Hardy Way but could not see any sign of this path joining up with the Hardy Way.
There are lots of options at the top of the path where you can see a long way over Morden Heath. We decided to carry on along the ridge for a little while to enjoy a bit more of this view before turning south on the way back.
We arrived back at The Silent Woman at about ten past one a mere three and a quarter hours after setting off. We enjoyed the friendly atmosphere, the service, a nice big pot of tea and a brace of brunches.
It was a very pleasant bright and breezy day and our only disappointment was the lack of wildlife. Perhaps everything was still recovering from the snow.