Today was one of those gloriously sunny winter days that starts with a sharp frost followed by weak milky sunshine. Good lady wife and I spent the morning walking in Sherwood Forest and around Edwinstowe. Sherwood itself is a beautiful forest full of deciduous trees and plenty of tracks to explore it on. We walked approximately 6 miles in no real direction, nor with any real purpose except to enjoy the morning.
Naturally we found ourselves visiting the Major Oak and I must confess to being slightly disappointed by it. It looked better than it did last time I saw it when the scaffolding holding up its branches was newer and more prominent; however, in my opinion it just doesn’t look right. For me the Centre Tree, which is only a short walk away is much better. Either way there are plenty of old gnarled oaks around to amaze at.
We also had a look around the Visitor Centre and a drink in the cafe there. Again we found the Visitor Centre fairly disappointing and lacking any real focus. The cafe was better, reasonably priced and consequently appeared very popular. Whilst I’m moaning a bit I think it would be fair to say car parking is £3.00, which is collected on entry, I personally object to paying for car parking in the woods and believe it should be free to encourage people to get out more; however, I understand councils need to raise revenue. Perhaps a better way to do it would and also to reduce the cost would be to use a machine not a person.
Notwithstanding the gripes above, Sherwood is a beautiful forest and there are plenty of access points and other Visitor Centres. If I was visiting for the first time I think I would opt to access the woods from Clumber Park.
