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A Weekend in Ashdown Forest

Back at the beginning of October, me and Darren celebrated 8 years together so we decided to book a trip to Ashdown Forest. Ashdown Forest is the inspiration behind the Winnie the Pooh stories as we love Winnie the Pooh so much we decided we wanted to go.
Our accommodation was the Hundred Acre Studio which is on Airbnb, this was a little studio area attached to a house owned by a lady called Eve and her dog Sooty right in the heart of the forest. I cannot rave enough about Eve and Sooty and the studio they were amazing. Eve is really knowledgeable about the area and so helpful but also respectful of your space considering it’s attached to her house. Also her black Labrador Sooty is amazing he’s so calm, friendly and quiet. We actually only saw her twice in the three days we were there and one of them times was when she greeted us. The studio itself is gorgeous and has everything you need for a short stay. The kitchen and bedroom are in the same room but the kitchen is so modern and easy to use, it has a microwave, kettle, 2 hobs and a toaster so more than enough to make food. Eve even got us a little  milk and there were some little boxes of cereal in the cupboard as well which I thought was a lovely touch. There’s a separate toilet and sink in one room and then a shower in another room, all stocked with little toiletries which was cute. My favourite thing were all the cute Winnie the Pooh pictures dotted around they really added to it. It was everything we could have asked for and more if I’m honest, it was also my first experience using Airbnb and it was so good.

Saturday

We travelled down Saturday morning which took about 3 hours and we stopped for McDonalds breakfast as well. To our advantage Eve asked if we could come down earlier than the normal 3pm check in as she had a party so we ended up getting there for around midday. Once we spoke to Eve and got settled in we made a plan of what to do. Normally I have a plan of what we are doing but this time I didn’t and it worked out for us. 
We made a plan to go to Pooh sticks bridge first then go to Pooh corner after. It was hard to navigate around in the car to find the right places to park but we eventually got to the parking for Pooh Sticks Bridge. The bridge was about a 20 minute walk from the car park and it was so cute. My mum gave us lollipop sticks with our names and the year to use as Pooh sticks and we won 1 game each of Pooh sticks. 
We then headed back to the car and set the location for Pooh’s corner which is in a near by village called Hartfield and oh my gosh it is heaven for a Winnie the Pooh fan. It’s got a cafe, a shop and a little Pooh museum its magical. The food was lovely I had Teddy Bear toast and a lemonade and Darren had a cream tea that had 2 scones which cost us about £10.00 ish for it all. My teddy bear toast was basically Winnie the Pooh shaped toast which was incredible and the toast itself was done just right as well not burnt. Darren’s scones were massive and he had tea served in a Winnie the Pooh teapot which is amazing. The museum was lovely it had all Winnie the Pooh merchandise from around the world it was amazing. We couldn’t leave the shop without a purchase so I bought us a Winnie the Pooh picture which we will hang up one day when we have a house. I loved it so much, would highly recommend. After that we went back and chilled at the Airbnb, then took a drive to the shops, made some dinner and had a night in of playing games and watching stuff on our iPads. The Airbnb does have WiFi but not a television and is in the middle of the forest so a car is highly recommended to get anywhere. 

Sunday
This was the day of our actual anniversary and because the weather hadn’t been great we actually decided to go to Eastbourne which is about a 40 minute drive away. Also one of our uni friends lives there and we hadn’t seen her for about 2 years and she was free so we went down. Firstly, though Eve’s house backs onto the forest, she literally has a bridge into the forest, we took a walk that way instead but could only go so far due to the rainfall the night before so it was a bit of a muddy washout but it was a lovely little walk nonetheless. Darren drove to Eastbourne and we spent the majority of the day there with our friends, we went on the pier and played pool, we had fish and chips and we had ice cream. I love the seaside it was such a lovely day and it only rained once all at luckily. We got back to the Airbnb and chilled for a bit then went and picked up some food as we realised that we had a hob so could cook pasta, which was nice and again settled in for the night.

Monday
We left the Airbnb about 11 and headed straight to Pooh corner for one last breakfast, we had the same as before and once again it was incredible. We decided to do the official Winnie the Pooh walk that the National Trust do and it was really lovely. We parked in Gills Leap car park and did a massive circle that saw us find the Enchanted Place, the Heffalump Trap, the AA Milne and EH Shepherd memorial, Roo’s Sandy Pit, the Hundred Acre Wood, The North Pole and Eeyore’s Gloomy Place. All in all this took us about an hour to do, it is a bit muddy so probably better to do it in the summer. We downloaded the guide off the Internet and used that to guide ourselves around and I’m so proud of us doing it and I really enjoyed it as well. Once this was complete we had some lunch in a nearby village and made our way home.

 We had the loveliest weekend away and it was amazing being in the middle of Winnie the Pooh inspiration as the bear is so special to us. If you love Winnie the Pooh then I would highly recommend coming down and immersing yourself in it and also I highly recommend Eve’s Hundred Acre Studio for accommodation as well.

 If you are interested in booking the Hundred Acre Studio on Airbnb then check it out here: Hundred Acre Studio

 I hope you enjoyed this post

 Stacey x 
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