I live in the New Forest National Park, UK, and it’s an incredibly beautiful place, but I hadn’t realized that it can also be a potentially quite dangerous landscape. There are bogs and quagmire all over the New Forest – ponies and other animals are smart enough to avoid them. We weren’t, as we almost found out to our own expense this weekend.
One tabloid may have described our weekend walk as “A New Forest bog ate my son!” especially if a celebrity
He was involved. However, even though we didn’t have the latest glossy magazine cover celeb among us, we ended up pretty freaked out, once we stopped laughing.
We started our walk through the moors with my son, a stocky 28 year old who is six foot two, his friend Michael, my husband and our adorable dog.
We headed into a deep valley and spent a lot of time watching the New Forest ponies and cows enjoying the day in these beautiful surroundings. The stream that ran through the valley was very shallow, but from time to time the dog could swim a little. We circled around and took some gorgeous photos of turquoise and iridescent damsel flies.
We also found the Sundew plant, which is a carnivorous bog plant found in the New Forest, which is very similar to the Venus Fly Trap. It lives on the edge of a stream and devours any insect that lands on it.
Thank goodness we didn’t walk near a six foot Sundew plant or my poor son could have been a tasty meal!
Along we wandered and my son was facing Micheal and me, only a few feet away. We could see that we were approaching a swampy area as the land flowed into the creek ahead. The crossing was only one meter long and we all knew that we could easily cross it by jumping.
My son jumped first, and Michael and I didn’t realize what happened next because we were too busy chatting.
Before our eyes, he fell at least 3 feet into this rather innocent looking New Forest bog, waist deep in fetid brown slime.
The shock was tremendous: she later said she felt like Dawn French in a sketch comedy we once saw. She was literally sucked up to her muzzle in mud and water!
Michael and I, once we got used to not seeing him at eye level, we absolutely fell in love. Here was this six foot man wriggling at our feet trying to get out of a swamp! I don’t think we could really take it in, and since he’s always joking, we thought he was some kind of joke, well if it wasn’t you in the swamp, he was funny!
He skinned himself and managed to drag himself to the edge of the bog and then the next part of our New Forest bog adventure began: the horrible smell. Obviously, he’d churned up hundreds of years’ worth of boggy sediment, peat, and decaying debris, and most of it was stuck in his jeans and wellington boots; we did not know that a walk in the New Forest meant a walk in the depths of the sea.
He had a symbolic strand of long grass dangling from each wellington and was completely covered in thick, acrid brown slime. He sucked! We made our way back to the car and had to get the dog out of the boot as there was only one place for this New Forest bog man to ride and that was in the boot!
Once we got home, he was hosed down in the garden and felt much better after a hot shower (his second of the day).
Eventually we all stopped laughing and when we had time to reflect, we realized how dangerous the New Forest bog walk could have been. There was no indication that the ground was so unsafe, or that someone would slide so quickly at such a depth.
Earlier in the week I was at the New Forest Show and spoke to Hants Fire and Rescue staff who showed me photos of some of the rescues they carry out. They said that, in general, New Forest ponies, cows and other animals are quite aware of where dangerous areas of bog or bog are in the New Forest, and generally manage to safely avoid them.
So if you are out and about in the New Forest, be careful. Fortunately, we all live to look back and laugh about it, this time.
