Last month, our lovely planned holiday in Malta was cancelled owing to the famous ash, so we decided to just pretend we were on holiday while staying at home. A brief bit of googling came up with two cycle routes which we unaccountably hadn’t come across before. Okay, so maybe we could be forgiven for being ignorant of the Hayling Billy but how could we have lived in Winchester for thirty years and never cycled the Test Way from Romsey to Stockbridge?

Arriving at the car park near the Bear And Ragged Staff, we realized in the nick of time that the bikes on the back of the car wouldn’t fit underneath the ultra-low anti-traveller bar. Having avoided that trap, we set off along the pleasingly flat route along the Test – a neat five miles each way. Stockbridge is an extraordinary place. It sees itself as quaint, but actually it obviously survives on the custom of the huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ brigade. Its relationship with the real world seems tenuous, although it does have a Co-op.

We stopped at Lilly’s, a café-bar which has seen better days. Here, we were outrageously over-charged for a couple of very low-quality sandwiches. Examination of the two derelict premises in the High Street (an old riding stable headquarters and a previous garage) revealed that both have planning applications in for café-bars, so Lillys is going to have to raise the bar considerably if it wants to compete. We nosed around the nick-nack shops and concluded that, off-season, some of them must surely have not a single customer all day. Pausing only to muse as to why one of the art galleries features a huge caricature of Keith Richards (not something most people would like on their wall) and to correct a disgraceful missing apostrophe on a sign outside the charmingly tatty Grosvenor Hotel, we headed back along the old rail rack towards Horsebridge Station.

Now anyone with any sense of nostalgia for the age of steam could not fail to be entranced by this gorgeous place. We sat on the platform and enjoyed a wonderful cream tea while chatting to the owner, who remains dismayed that the local council demands that she should have planning permission for a marquee. I’ll repeat that, planning permission for a marquee. I remember reading this story in the Chronicle years ago. Get off her back, council!

The Hayling Billy track is, if anything, even more rewarding especially in the sunshine that probably not even Malta could have roused. This was the holidaymakers’ track from Havant to Hayling Island, where the station has now become a theatre. Getting there was fun for a start. We drove to Eastney and caught the little ferry over. There we immediately found a pub called the Ferry Boat which I swear must be the cheapest in Hampshire. Lager at £1.80 a pint, a bottle of rosé wine (not that we indulged) for £3.50. We both chomped a large basket of burger and chips for £2.99 and reflected on how it contrasted with the previous day’s rip-off.

The track is, again, flat as a pancake and, hugging the coastline, seriously scenic and a paradise for bird-lovers. The return journey took us via a gorgeous seafront bistro called the Inn On The Beach, where we indulged in yet another cream tea (you can justify it by the cycling exercise) and looked out over a Solent vista that couldn’t possibly have been bettered by Malta.

Come to sunny Hampshire!