BER Holiday to Burgate 7-11/10/2024

Monday 7/10/2024

10 Easy Riders arrived at Burgate Manor Farm self-catering cottages on a week forecast for intermittent intense rain.

We started with a recce ride of the area led by Ann. The roads were wet, but we stayed dry. We found a peaceful church with some delightful stained and hand-drawn glass with horses and swans of the area. As we rode, we passed wild horses and pigs on the roads. We discovered the pigs are allowed out from the end of September to early November for pannage. Pannage is the right given to local residents to let out their pigs in Royal Forests (now only the New Forest in the UK) to root for mast. There are several benefits – it feeds the pigs on fresh local feed; it prevents soil compaction; ponies and cattle, that should not over-feed on acorns are prevented from acorn poisoning as removes a huge volume of acorns from the area; and it fattens pigs. It does mean local drivers need to keep an eye out for free-roaming pigs though! The pigs were cross-breeds between Gloucester Old Spot, Saddlebacks and Berkshires. A local farmer told us that these cross-breeds have a better flavour, aided by a pannage diet, and that the subsequent meat is darker than farmed meat.

12 miles

Tuesday 8/10/2024

The weather forecast was for heavy intermittent rain. Chris, Cathy, Claire and Steve decided on a sightseeing trip to Salisbury instead of riding. Ann and the others were braver and decided to ride.

The Salisbury party had a lovely day out, visiting Salisbury Cathedral, where we were able to see one of the original Magna Carta documents. We found a great café that served marvellous tortilla and sausage rolls, followed by a contented ramble round the town.

The intrepid cycling party were incredibly lucky and dodged the showers all morning and were only caught in a small shower just before returning to the lodgings. I saw them on the road as they returned, and they looked radiant, happy and well-exercised.

We went to the Horse & Groom pub for dinner, and to our delight there was a pub quiz with four rounds, that last throughout our meal. As we had Peter in our team, we were scoring well all though the rounds! The final round result meant we were tie-breakers for the win! The tie breaking question was about the length of the mast of the winning ship in the Americas cup (I think?!) and Julie provided the closest answer to the correct one … and we won! So, we have a bottle of red, and a bottle of

white wine to consume over the next couple of days!