Dorset Staycation: a day on Brownsea Island

In front of me, right in the middle of the path was a stag, in full antler, just staring at me. I stopped and stared back. So it was true, the animals had taken Brownsea Island back.

Sika deer stag with fine antlers staring at me from between the trees

I’d gone across for a strictly timed morning of wildness and peace and walking. At the height of a normal summer, there would be 1200 on this mile-long island. In September of a pandemic, I was on the first boat of the day and I’d heard on the radio that there were 32 passengers. I’d seen four walk-ups (and been angry that they’d managed to board the ferry before those of us who’d done as we’d been told and booked in advance) and I suspected there had been a couple of others. Forty people, perhaps. Brownsea is a small island but it feels quiet when it’s full so this was going to be empty and silent to the point of weirdness.

Selfie on the ferry, face hidden by mask, sunglasses and hood up. The mask has red, green & blue dinosaurs on it.

Just to make sure, I opted to walk the combined triple trail in the conventionally-opposite direction. And if you haven’t figured out that I’m an angry antisocial person yet, you will when I tell you incandescently furious I was at a middle-aged middle-class couple who followed me from about 150m behind.

That’s not peace and tranquility. That’s not “there are 40 people on this island so you’ll be totally alone”. That’s having to keep up a route march pace so I can’t hear their inane chatter as I attempt to immerse myself in this wild bit of forest.

And it was wild. Brownsea Island is a nature reserve, a haven for red squirrels and deer and I saw plenty of both down this quiet road. I say “road”. The only vehicles on the island are a few rangers’ golf buggies and a couple of pickups that serve much the same purpose – conveying tools for conservation work. And I’ve done some of that conservation work.

Red squirrel with a nut in its mouth peeking round a tree trunk

A different red squirrel peeking at me from a different tree

Another red squirrel sitting up eating a large nut

A last red squirrel perched on a broken branch.

Having been closed for a chunk of the year, the animals have got used to not having humans around. So now squirrels peek curiously from up trees and deer stare from the woods and they often hold still enough for good photos. I even caught a few seconds on video. I knew there were deer – I’ve seen them before but never so many, so close or so openly staring. The squirrels like people. They’ve learned that humans mean food and they’re an absolute pest down on the campsite. They’ve learnt to open squirrel-proof plastic tubs and you haven’t lived until you’ve seen the QM flee the mess tent because a squirrel’s got in and helped itself to biscuits.

Herd of sika deer among the trees, some of them looking curiously at me

Sika deer staring disapprovingly at me from a clump of ferns

At the end of the blue route, I managed to lose my pursuers as I headed down to the beach. The forest comes right down to the sea and there are trees on the beach, which is something I don’t think I’ve encountered elsewhere. It could be very peaceful, except that Poole Quay is right there and the sound of industry can be heard all over Brownsea Island. The Purbecks, to the other side, are home to army shooting ranges so some days you’ll hear the heavy boom of cannon fire echoing too. And there are always private boats moored off the beach. Oddly, I neither resent nor begrudge their presence, as long as they’re not playing loud music. It was early for lunch – it was always going to be early for lunch when I had to return on the 1pm boat – but I sat down on a tree to eat some of my picnic.

The view from my lunch spot - a beach with overhanging trees, Poole Harbour and on the horizon, bits of Poole Quay and Hamworthy

Then I walked along the shore. The west end of Brownsea Island used to have a pottery and a village to support it. The island’s clay was excellent for pottery, although Colonel & Mrs Waugh, who discovered it, were a bit disappointed it only made chunky solid coarse stuff and not fine bone china. I have no idea how much they made but it closed around 1850 and still, 170 years on, the entire beach at this end is about 25% orange stones and 75% broken pottery. There’s so much of it! It’s crazy! It’s part of the charm of this particular beach and any sharp edges have long since been worn smooth but surely, on an island that’s a nature reserve, burying the entire western beach in pottery was an eco catastrophe? What I’d love is to spend a week there with my body weight in superglue, turning bits of broken pottery into something new and functional, perhaps with its many seams painted gold.

Walking along Brownsea's west shore, where the pine woods meet the narrow sandy beach

Brownsea Pottery Beach

Beach made of broken bits of pottery

There was supposed to be a set of steps back up the cliffs shortly after Pottery Pier but I couldn’t find it. I found the famous clay, though. Dark blue and sticky and then I had to wade through it to get round and under trees while becoming aware of the greenery and seaweed that marks how high up the beach the tide comes and how long it might be before I have to worry about that. A while, I hoped. The steps into the boat went downwards that morning when I usually remember them being pretty flat and that surely meant a boat floating low on a low tide. All the same, I’d be glad to be back in the woods.

The steps up from the beach into the pine forest

And there were the steps and there I was back on the wide green road that leads from above the campsite. I still had about two hours and I was more than halfway round by now. This is the side of the island more often visited so there were no deer in sight and I didn’t see any squirrels, although I heard noises in the trees over my head a couple of times.

The steps up from the beach into the pine forest

Bright sky though tall pine trees above me

I paused at the Scout Stone, commemorating BP’s experimental camp here on Brownsea Island in 1908, from which the Scout and Guide movements were born. It’s actually really badly placed because from late morning until evening, the sun is behind it. I was just there in time for the sun to come from its right and because I was alone, I attempted to rig my camera into a tree for some selfies.

Selfie at the Brownsea Island Scout Stone

Attempting to rig my camera into a tree for a selfie

I made my way back via the tree trail, which mostly runs around the orange walking route. I’d seen a few of the trees at the beginning of the day, when I was at the end of the orange route, and now I ticked off the beginning ones – oaks, mainly, but a conifer or two as well. I think of Brownsea Island as being entirely tall straight pines but it’s not. No rhododendrons either. Mary Bonham-Christie, former owner and “the Demon of Brownsea”, planted them and volunteers (including myself – see the blogs here: 2018 / 2015) have spent fifty years, or probably more, trying to remove them. For a start, they’re an invasive non-native species. Then they block sunlight to the lower-growing plants and that kills them. And then they turn the soil acidic which kills native plants like the pines, which in turn would starve the red squirrels. So the rhodis had to go.

Sycamore tree on the Brownsea tree trail

Multi-trunked oak tree on Brownsea's tree trail

Not that Mrs Bonham-Christie was all bad. It was mainly through her efforts that the island became a wildlife haven of heath and woodland. However, she ejected Brownsea’s few residents and then, following a huge fire in 1934, she banned Scouts, camping and all visitors.

The farm at the top of Church Field

And there I was, back at Church Field, which is where I think of Brownsea as “beginning”. It’s the first thing you see when the yellow stone path from the ferry opens up. There’s a farm on one side and it allows its chickens to run wild across the field – probably a legacy of Mrs Bonham-Christie. One of the chickens had seven peeping squeaking chicks scurrying around with it and when I went and sat on a tree stump on the hill, I was followed by a few more chickens, including a magnificent and curious orange cockerel. Time was getting on. It was 12.34 and I still had a five minute walk down the lane, along which I was escorted by four peacocks. Ok, three peacocks and a peahen. The boys don’t have those amazing tails at this time of year so they look a bit funny. Like the squirrels, they understand the connection between visitors and food and they were were off to wander around the cafe. It’s takeaway only at the moment and you can take your tea and cake and sit in the garden, overlooking Sandbanks and minding out for the big dinosaur birds.

Chickens wandering around Brownsea's Church Field

Tailless autumn peacocks

I’d brought my picnic but I’d eaten some of it and besides, I’d had my hands all over the ground so I opted just to enjoy the view for a while and then sit down in the grass and wait. I got a front seat on the boat – I wasn’t the first on, by any means (there were the four walk-ins, at the front again, even though they hadn’t been waiting in the garden where we’d been told to wait) but the people in front of me didn’t opt to sit at the front of the boat. It had been a warm morning, where I was only wearing my shirt for the pockets, but it’s always cold on the water. Wearing a mask is actually really helpful. I put my hood up but the wind blew it straight down again so at least my jaw didn’t get frozen up. And when you’re sitting at the front with a cold sea breeze trying to demolish you, at least you know that there are no virus particles being blown your way from the other passengers.

Sailing on the Brownsea Island ferry

On a normal day, I wouldn’t have treated the circuit like quite such a route march and I’d have stopped at a more suitable hour for a proper picnic but you know, a deserted island is a really good place to spend half a day thoroughly isolating.