Saturday and we had blue skies and sunshine following several days of mist and murk. We paid the price of course with a chill wind blowing strongly.
I have my grandson over from Australia for a few weeks and he has a new camera to play with for the trip so we took the opportunity to get out and visited Staunton Park situated between Leigh Park and Rowlands Castle, near Havant.
We were hoping that the trees would be showing their autumn colours but we were somewhat disappointed. I think we were too early. However, we did enjoy the walk and took some photo’s.
A selection of snaps follows for your delectation, the first of which is a view over Leigh Lake.

The following photo shows part of the countryside that will over the next few years, planning consents permitting, become a fairly large reservoir
Although Stones house has long since been demolished there are many signs remaining of the old buildings. Not the least of which are the arches below.

Of course the main reason we were there was to partake of the natural beauty. One aspect of the natural world which offers so much variety is that of the fungi.


These cattle make for a quite peaceful scene even though the wind was blowing quite hard.

The following photo is of part of land which will eventually end up under water as part of a proposed new reservoir.

In the woodlands there are a number of items which are I believe intended as both art and education for children. There is no description near this but I believe that it is intended to let children hear magnified sounds of the woodland. It can be rotated through 360 degrees. I, for want of an alternative christened it “The Mukkinese Battle Horn” after the famous short film featuring Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. Nearby there was another item which is a concave / convex mirror. We had much fun with it which I am sure the children would too.


And to finish our walk, as we returned to the car park, this chap came to see us off. It was a shame that he was disappointed by the fact that we had no food to offer him. This is probably why he didn’t display his tail feathers.
