If you had one day in the New Forest and wanted t jump in streams and see ponies ...

[mrsotter]

Which part would you go to?

Never been and want a nice walk, with streams and ponies. We will have an 18 month old and a 4yr old.

Where would you park? Will we get lost?

On the road from lyndhurst to brockenhurst....go past the big camp site (holland wood) on the left. Very soon after that on the left is a parking area, popular paddling stream. You can walk across balmers lawn and into the forest a bit where there's more ponies and streams, etc

Thanks Viva, that's exactly what I was looking for

No probs, have just checked on a map and it's called standing hat car park. The main paddling area is back towards the main road, so you could walk back from the carpark to it. You'll see it, as you drive to the carpark. But I'm sure I remember biking past other, less busy paddle spots in the actual forest.

And here's a walk from the car park. www.newforestnpa.gov.uk/_data/assets/pdf_file/0018/30195/pignal_inclosure-_walk_1.pdf

if you take an os map you shouldn't get lost. Brockenhurst is lovely for a mooch round, nice coffee shops. Lyndhurst is very busy especially at weekends in the summer, I'd avoid driving through it if you're going that sort of time.

Don't touch or feed the ponies though!! Too many people doing this and its causing a problem with them now raiding picnics etc.

....and don't , as I saw 1 idiot do, set his very small daughter on top of 1 of the ponies!!! They are mainly wild & unhandled and most certainly not broken to ride.

Great information Viva, much appreciated! And thank you for the link

Eve we will be looking at the ponies - not touching, feeding or riding!