Western Solent loop: four ferries cycle ride

As its name suggests, my six ferries cycle ride around the Solent uses six ferries: Portsmouth-Gosport, Hamble River, Southampton-Hythe, Lymington-Yarmouth, Cowes chain ferry and Ryde-Portsmouth. In today's ride, a friend and I tackled just the Western half, starting from Southampton station and going anticlockwise using the ferries Southampton-Hythe, Lymington-Yarmouth, Cowes chain ferry and finally the ferry from East Cowes back to Southampton. Here is a gps track-map: I kept my gps tracking on the whole time, so the ferry crossings are included.

The route followed was similar to that described previously, but we made use of a cycle route along the Solent Way from Beaulieu to Bucklers Hard, and we cut a corner on the Round the Island cycle route at Shalfleet. It pays to synchronise with the ferry timetables: we just missed the ferry from Lymington and had to wait an hour for the next one (we made good use of the hour for a tea break), and it was quite a rush to get the last practicable (1930) ferry from East Cowes back to Southampton, bearing in mind you must factor in the time for the chain ferry crossing over the River Medina. But it's all part of the fun. (FYI, the Yarmouth-Cowes part of the ride is shared with my 'Back of the Wight' ride.)

On the ferry from Southampton to Hythe

On Hythe Pier

Heading along the waterfront from Hythe

Solent Way to Holbury

The countryside traversed by our route between Holbury and Beaulieu is not exactly the most scenic part of the New Forest: the only option is quite busy roads