In search of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet
We set out, after a slow start to the morning, and some mundane chores like washing, to explore the 100 Acre Wood. I was sure we would find some of A.A.Milne’s famous characters there. It turned out however that the NI version is actually the Hundred Acres Reserve and while there were some impressive Morton Bay Figs with their ‘flying buttresses’ and a plethora of birdlife as well as the tallest tree fern in the world, there was no Winnie, Piglet, Tigger, or even Eeyore. In fact, with the exception of the nomadic cow population and the feral chooks, NI is severely lacking in ground-dwelling animals. Once we had enjoyed the quiet wooded walk, the silence broken only by the terns flying in from the sea and resting briefly in the treetops, and been mesmerised by the broiling sea, viewed from a number of cliff-edge vantage points, we returned to the car and moved on to explore Bumbora Bay accessed via a very well-made board walk which took us to the rocky beach favoured by ‘boardriders’.