Summer Outing (12th July 2003)

Here are some photos of our summer outing on 12th July 2003. We hired a mini-coach from Summerfield Coaches, who were absolutely superb. We left Southampton at 9am and headed off to Somerset. The outing was a mystery trip and most people didn't know where we were going.

We first visted the brewery of Glastonbury Ales in Somerton, where we went to present a certificate. Glastonbury Ales' Mystery Tor won Beer of the Festival, as voted by our customers at Eastleigh Beer Festival in November 2002. Greig, the brewer and owner, was a lovely and very friendly person. He welcomed us with a brand new porter that he'd brewed. I'm not ususally a porter drinker but really enjoyed it. From the brewery, we moved on to the Halfway House, Pitney (Somerset CAMRA pub of the year 2003 and CAMRA National pub of the year 1996). The ploughmans that most of us had for lunch was a challenge to finish. We then moved on to the Rose & Crown (also known as Eli's) in Huish Episcope.

We left somerset after a lovely day and started our Pub Crawl home. We first stopped at the Stapleton Arms, Buckhorn Weston, Dorset. The pub is run by Chris who used to run the Duke of Wellington, Bugle Street, Southampton. The second stop was to visit Paul & Jan (former landlord & landlady of the Waterloo Arms, Freemantle, Southampton) in the Wyndham Arms, Salisbury.

Finally, we returned to Southampton - a few people found it a little hard to keep their eyes open after a long day's drinking. Most got off the coach at the Waterloo Arms. The others got off at Southampton Central. I haven't heard that anyone had anything bad to say about the trip and many people have told me what an excellent day they had. Hopefully we'll be able to get a few more people along next time we have a trip and that will reduce the price per head.

All photos are approximtely 640x480 JPEG images (under 100K), unless otherwise indicated. Full-size images can be found here.