England Coast Path Part 6A Southampton to Hamble-le-Rice

 Over The Solent

Distance 7:44 Miles

Time 2:36 Minutes

Elevation Gain 197 Feet

So we are over The Solent heading towards Southampton the weather again is cloudy & sunny with a gentle breeze. 

Starting at the very pretty village of Hamble-Le-Rice we have parked up & the bus is at the stop so a little rushed we get on the bus for the journey to Southampton. 

A faultless journey & we arrive & make our way to the town quay walking to the end as if we had come across the water by boat!

Southampton surprised us a newly developed town with nice clean wide pavements which we had to walk along for some way past Queen's park passing through  Vokes Memorial Park up & over the river Itchen Bridge funnily enough over the river Itchen! passing through a residential area & on to the coast line through a lovely park the Royal Victoria country park but then the path stopped & we found ourselves back on our friends The Pebbles!! 

Luckily this doesn't go on for too long & we are back on pavement. Coming in to Hamble.

Hamble-Le-Rice

The sun is shining on us & we find a cafe for tea & cake meeting a lovely couple with two babies & discover that they are foster parents & have been fostering for many years. 

Route

England Coast Path Part 5A Beaulieu to Hythe pier

Distance 7:28 Miles 

Elevation gain 221 Feet

Time 2:21

It's a murky overcast day, Beaulieu has a very small ''High street'' which we park in & stroll over to the bus stop for the once a day bus. 

We wait & wait & wait, but no bus appears, the appointed time comes & goes, still no bus, we give it a little more time but STILL NO BUS. Change of plan we will  walk from Beaulieu to Hythe & figure out hoe to get back later on. 

We set off on our Luckily short hike from Beaulieu to Hythe pier across the common land with the lovely ponies & industrial back drop.

The common land is not very inspiring & not many pictures were taken, nothing to wright about happened on the walk.

Arriving at hythe pier we look at transport links to get us back to Beaulieu, The best we can do is a bus going from Dibden Purlieu but not all the way back to Beaulieu. We walk up to Dibden Purlieu & wait for the bus, It Arrives!  we get on only to find that there are roadworks on the route & the bus is diverted cutting a section, the stop we need out of it's journey!

We exit the bus at the Royal Oak & have to walk back two may be three miles.

Feeding the birds

Back at Beaulieu we find a cafe & sit in the courtyard & fill up on tea & cake an interesting day.

Route

England Coast Path Part 4A Lymington to Beaulieu

 Distance 11:28

Elevation 254 Feet

Time 3:47

Lymington to Beaulieu

After a short break we are back in Dorset to continue our walk around England's glorious coast line.

We are filling in some of the bits we have missed out & today we pick up our trail in Lymington, It's a  fair morning & we have been able to stay locally with a short drive to Beaulieu where we have to catch the bus as there are only a couple a day, We find ourselves on the school bus which is full of loud mouth unruly students where the language is very colorful.

Lymington Harbor

Believe it or not we were last here on the 2nd June 2021 a whole year ago but have been walking other sections of the path including the final sections of the swcp more information on this at https://swcp-chronicles.blogspot.com  Yes it's another blog for the enterprising eye to read.

A bright sunny start with flat footpaths leaving Lymington down the river & over the bridge out into open fields past ponds & with the ears of corn gently moving with the air.

Lesley takes fancy to a new mode of transport

Having persuaded her that it's not a practical vehicle for our everyday needs (even though I would like a tractor to play with) we walk on coming to the pretty little place of bucklers hard a former ship building village with its museum houses which are free to look in so we have a little tour of this historic bit of England.

View up the river

And the final push on to Beaulieu over some common land where some wild ponies graze.

Arriving back at Beaulieu where we are reunited with the car ready for the drive back to our accommodation.