Whistlestop

With bike-hire shops (guests get a discount at Cyclexperience Bike Hire and Bike Sales) and riding stables within five minutes’ drive, there’s no excuse for swerving the leafy cycling tracks and bridleways of the New Forest National Park. However you’d prefer to explore the park, your hosts have a wealth of information on walks, hacks and biking tracks nearby. On your travels you may be lucky enough to see semi-wild New Forest ponies grazing on the grassy commons, but if you’d like to see some more indigenous animals, red deer range freely at New Forest Wildlife Park (20 minutes’ drive), which is also home to playful otters and pine martens. There’s a fine collection of futuristic racing cars, vintage marques and buses at National Motor Museum, Beaulieu (15 minutes), and if you’d like to introduce little culture into the mix, you can tour the ornate interiors, restored Victorian-era kitchens and topiary gardens at 16th-century Palace House (15 minutes).