We had a 13 night stay in the last two weeks of March, and found this site to be an excellent base for exploring this lovely area. At the time we visited, the grass pitches were not yet in use, and the site had a very spacious feel about it. The hard standing pitches are fairly generous, accepting a twin axle caravan, tow van & awning with ease.

Service points & bogs

Contrary to some earlier reviews, I found the service points to be quite conveniently spaced out, close enough to use, far away enough not to be a disturbance. Also , some previous reviews didn’t like the toilet block, we thought it was great, and a nice change to have separate rooms that are not gender specific, particularly useful if you’re travelling with someone who needs assistance showering. At some point, these will be redeveloped, and for me, that’ll be a loss, but I understand the present facilities are probably high maintenance. If you’ve stayed at Chew Valley, the shower rooms are a similar arrangement.

TV & data

Some pitches have TV hook up at the power bollard, and some don’t, we found reception through the vans standard antenna very good. There’s no wifi on this site at present, but mobile phone signal is pretty good, and we found tethering through the mobile (EE) gave good data for email & general browsing.

Getting about

By foot, Brockenhurst is about 30 mins walk, but the forest itself is right at the site entrance, fantastic for cycling and walking (the cycle maps from reception are a good investment ). Local towns that are easy to visit by car are Lyndhurst and Lymington, both very nice, though Lymington would be our favourite.

A day out on the IOW is very easy too, we drove to Lymington and parked at the ferry (£6 for 16 hours) and went over as foot passengers. It’s £21 for a combined ferry & ventis bus ticket through whiteline, purchased on the day. If you book online the day before, return is I think £8 using a CC discount code available from the site info room, and then ventis bus daypass is £10 purchased on the bus. Either way, you can have a good long day there quite cheaply, and the last ferry the day we were there was 21:40. It’s also possible to walk into Brockenhurst, and catch the train straight to the ferry, not sure of the fare. Excellent ventis timetables are available free from the ferry booking office on the IOW.

Too many local attractions on the mainland to list, but for any motorcycle anoracks, I have to recommend Sammy Millers museum, a really unusual collection and good value.

We’ll be back again, I have to say, the site wardens were very good, and the Local Indian in Brockenhurst, Dynasty, does excellent Balti & Biryani dishes.

Missing it already!