Today is our second wedding anniversary! How fast has the last two years flown by? Even though they have been jam-packed and great fun, it’s still hard to believe that our wedding and our incredible honeymoon in Sri Lanka and the Maldives wasn’t just a few months ago! Anyway, as much as I love you guys, this is a scheduled post as I’m not sitting writing blog posts on our anniversary. Soz. Instead I’ve finally got around to writing a post I’ve been meaning to share for a whole year about our first wedding anniversary weekend last year in the New Forest.

The New Forest in the south of England is a beautiful national park. I hadn’t realised just how beautiful it is until I started planning our trip. I heard about the New Forest Shepherds Huts on Caroline Taylor from All That I’m Eating’s instagram feed years ago and immediately looked into booking it for a romantic getaway. Our anniversary seemed like the perfect opportunity so I booked it as soon as I could! Only then when I started doing a bit of research about the area did I realise how wild and stunning the countryside is. The forest areas are interspersed with wide open meadowland and the wild horses graze leisurely all around. You don’t have to go far before you see one, and at this time of year there are foals around too.

Our shepherds hut was set at the back of the grounds of the Royal Oak pub overlooking a gorgeous rural view. At one point we saw a group of deer leaping through the fields. The interior was like a little country cottage with a lovely log burner (that we didn’t need but it would be great in the cooler seasons), an efficient use of storage/bed/dining space, and a cute little kitchen area with everything you need. They also provided a barbecue and bikes so we made use of both of those! The Royal Oak pub is great too with good beer, really good food and live music.

Breakfast and barbecue packs can be preordered and collected from the pub with a generous selection of local meats and foods. We had 2 breakfast packs and 1 barbecue pack that provided plenty of food for two days and it was absolutely delicious. We did supplement them with a couple of bits and bobs we brought from home to use up, including the last of our wedding cake that we had frozen after the wedding. It was still absolutely delicious!

A special mention has to be made for Jenna who runs the huts as a family business. She deserves her own paragraph because she was amazing. We arrived so much later than we planned due to traffic and getting a little bit lost – totally our own fault, but Jenna and the staff in the pub were still so welcoming despite having to wait for us. On our last day Jenna didn’t have anyone coming to use the hut that night so we were able to stay as long as we wanted which was great as that was our actual anniversary. We stayed until the early evening relaxing and sitting out on our little terrace enjoying the beautiful view.

I thoroughly recommend the New Forest Shepherd’s Huts as they are such a lovely company to book with. Jenna made it so easy and really made us feel at home. We had such a relaxing, romantic first anniversary that we’ll never forget and for all the right reasons!

Find out more or book the New Forest Shepherds Huts here: http://newforestshepherdshuts.co.uk

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