Autumn Breaks
Autumn is a sublime season and perhaps the best time to visit this beautiful National Park and book a break in one of our New Forest Cottages.
There’s nothing more joyous than colourful walks in warm, sunny September through carpeted plains of purple heather, dotted with the bronze and green of wilting ferns. The forest floor and tree trunks are lit by brightly coloured wild mushrooms and grisly alien-looking fungi. And autumnal harvests mean the branches of forest fruit trees and bushes droop in submission from their bounty of bright, juicy berries, sloes, damsons, and apples, begging to be foraged and taken back to your New Forest Cottage kitchen to be made into a comforting pie or crumble.
Autumn signals Mother Nature to swing into action in preparation for winter. The park’s ancient trees explode into crimson, copper, ochre and burnt orange shades of soul-stirring scenery worthy of a library of Instagram posts and conker-kicking walks to cosy thatched pubs for a long lunch in front of a log fire.
The New Forest wildlife is preparing for the cold months too. Ponies, donkeys, and cattle grow thick, fluffy coats. And when you’re out walking, keep an ear open for the barks of deer as they gather for the annual rutting season to establish who will be the leader of the pack. Autumn is also Pannage time in the New Forest when hundreds of domestic pigs are set free for sixty days to roam the forest floor in search of fallen acorns to save the ponies, donkeys and cattle from becoming ill if they eat them in great quantities.
Visitors can find out about the National Park’s history, wildlife, and heritage during The New Forest Walking and Cycling Festival 2022, which runs from Saturday 15 October to Sunday 6 November. There are dozens of guided walks, rides and experiences like forest bathing for a dose of full forest immersion, fun ranger rambles, bird watching and fungi forays to identify which mushrooms are edible and which you should definitely avoid!
Find holiday cottages for The New Forest Walking and Cycling Festival
Autumn is also pumpkin season! For a day off lacing up your hiking boots, head out to the fields of Dan Tanners Farm in Sopley or Sunnyfields Farm Shop near Lyndhurst to pick your orange beauty, which children on their half-term holidays will have plenty of fun carving. Moving on to November – and the New Forest locals love nothing more than a good bonfire night and fireworks. There are lots of public displays dotted around village greens and cricket grounds, but the biggest in the National Park is in the grounds of Beaulieu – just make sure you buy a ticket online before you get there.
Find a New Forest Holiday Cottage for half-term
For a real back-to-nature escape this autumn, take a look at our full portfolio of New Forest Cottages