Lucycampcat - pear tree in the rain - any ideas

[Glassofwine]

Lucy - I remember you were going a couple of weeks after I last went (in the sun). We have booked for this week starting tomorrow and the forecast isn't good. Although we'd said that if it rained we wouldn't go, now its close the children are excited and it does seem a waste of money. So i was wondering if it rained when you went, or if you had any experiences of good places to go in bad weather - I think our children are a similar age.

[LucyCampCat]

We actually had really good weather and I've just checked metcheck for next week's weather and it looks fine for you. You may get wet putting the tent up but after that it seems ok.

The steam train to Swanage past Corfe Castle should be ok in the rain and the station is right in the middle of Swanage so you can get to the sandy beach if it's ok.
We also went to Brownsea Island (NT to get onto the island but you have to pay for the ferry)which would be ok on a showery day as the walks are mostly through the trees, watch out for the peacocks, they were determined to get our picnic!

Not sure about Monkey World as we didn't go there. Our two liked Kimmeridge Bay, you can go crabbing there and look for fossils on the flat rocks, that would be ok on a showery day too as it's not a 'typical beach'

As you can tell we liked to do the outside stuff, Studland Beach was lovely, thanks for that recommendation and we walked along the cliffs to old Harry Rocks, dd2 needed a piggy back on the way back!
We also went to Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door, fabulous, but what a hike, I wouldn't do that with little ones.
Tyneham village is really interesting, dd1 (age6) liked the stories of the village on the boards in the deserted houses.

I hope you enjoy the site as much, we found the owner rather grumpy and some of the 'regular' caravanner's children ran amok on the playground and broke the big trampoline!!

Our pitch was lovely though, down amongst the oak trees. I'll try and find a picture of our tent to post later!

[LucyCampCat]

crikey that was a bit long - sorry!

[Glassofwine]

Great info - thanks. Sorry to hear about the mad children, I guess it still wasn't school hols when we went, so a bit quieter. As for the owner, he wasn't grumpy with me at all, in fact let me book this week without paying a deposit because I told him we were broke till pay day! I must of charmed him .

I'd love one of those oak tree area pitches, unfortunately as we booked so late in the day, we are near to the toilet block, but I suppose that has its advantages. Would love to see pics.

[LucyCampCat]

I've uploaded a couple of photos here of our tent and the view of Old Harry Rocks at the end of our walk!

Perhaps we caught 'grumpy man' at a bad time! Don't know about you but I was petrified about losing that bloody key fob and the number of timed dh went off to the showers with it and one of the dd's needed the toilet.....

Have a great week, we can recommend the fish and chips in Wareham too, we ate ours by the river.

[Glassofwine]

ooh Lucy - you've got a proper tent, we bought ours on ebay, it's an unheard of make and I always feel a bit embarrassed by it. It's huge and I suspect the Amstrad of tents!

We also went to the Wareham fish & Chip shop - it's a camping thing.

By the way, I've never seen Metcheck before, wow it's very satisfying - I was just using the BBC before, now there's no turning back.

I think we'll wait till Monday, when the worst of the rain has gone, but am waiting for DH to get back from Heathrow tonight to discuss. Thanks for all your help