You are looking out over the part of the Solent known as Southampton Water.

The Solent is the drowned valley of a great river which once flowed east, over 40 million year old rocks, between what are now the Isle of Wight (in the distance to your left) and the mainland of Hampshire. It was an icey, tundra-like landscape.

Britain was gripped by the Ice Age for two million years, although it wasn't one long frozen stretch, there were actually 30 separate Ice Ages, each separated by unusually warm periods.

Archaeological remains from the Mesolithic era (12,000 years ago) suggest a much colder climate - similar to what a region like Newfoundland in Canada is like now.

The sea has been rising since the end of the Ice Age when the ice melted. A chalk ridge which ran from the Isle of Wight to the Purbecks was overwhelmed by the rising sea levels, drowning the Solent river valley and creating the coastline we know today.

The auroch skull at Southampton Maritime Museum

If you had been on this walk 12,000 years ago, you could have bumped into an auroch - a large primitive cattle which stood two metres high at the shoulder. The skull of an auroch discovered in Southampton Water in the 1870s is now on display at Southampton's Maritime Museum. Reindeer and mammoths also once roamed around the Netley area and odd teeth and bones are often recovered from the sea bed by fisherman.