This year I have given in. My partner has been asking me for years to come camping with him. Typically I am the 4 stars+ Hotel person, who would look prior to any trips hours online to find the hotel with the best reviews, preferably a nice wellness area and breakfast included. But this time I would swap my hotel for a tent- in fact, we actually stayed in a two person tent for a complete week. No telephone, no internet, no soft bed- no, just a small self inflating airmattress, us and the tent.
As you can see this was my 4 star luxurious hotel for the week. Once I agreed to camp, all we had to get was a complete set of camping equipment (I did not except there to be so much, but dear was I wrong!!!) and finding the right campsite. My partner has been to Poole in Dorset before to visit some friends, and loved it, so he almost begged me to go. (no exaggeration necessary) So I agreed and after finding a nice campsite called South Lytchett Manor we booked a train from London and were all settled!
When we arrived it was mixed weather, quite cloudy, but I was actually in a quite good mood, despite carrying an unhumane amount of weight on my bag. We took the bus from poole station and about 10 minutes later found ourselves at our campsite. The staff were really nice! They greeted us and straight away brought us to our spot for the week, which was just in front of a field with cows (great for animal lover=me, not so great for non-lovers I guess!) But to be honest the cows were great compared to the kids on the campsite! Yes, I know, now everyone is screaming: you go camping in main season and do not like kids- no good mixture! But to my defence- I live in London, and I have the habit to be surrounded by the most uncontrolled kids pushing buttons on buses non stop and every flat I seem to rent, I seem to get some kids running over my head all day..
After being moved to another spot and having a surprisingly good (and wet) night we started to have a fantastic time in poole!
Poole is really worth a visit. It has a lovely harbour, which has some great pubs. It has probably the best sweets shop one can imagine. Its called truly scumptious, is right at the harbour and has extremely cool opening times (sometimes till late at evening during main season) http://www.thepinksugarmouse.com/truly_scrumptious.html
I am quite convinced that they sell the best fudge around England!
Now another thing which really surprised me was the beach. When we finally got there (which seems to be easier by car than bus- but hey- we are camping and sporty, we are happy to walk for miles!!) we came to a truly wonderful beach. Studland beach looks like those sandy beaches in spain except for the dunes, that it is actually clean, that one can find a nice private spot (especially on the fkk part) and that they have (best above all!) an ice cream van coming around (yes an ice cream van on the beach- did they hear my prayers??) which sells Purbeck ice cream! A must have for any Poole tourist! The best ice-cream- throw away Haegen Dasz and Ben and Jerry, go for the Purbeck ice-cream. Wonder whether they have a fanclub on facebook yet?
Never mind- I absolutely loved that beach!
There is so much to talk about, like Corfe castle, Sandbanks and all those lovely villages surrounding Poole, but I do not want to bore anyone and will go back to my good old cuppa, enjoy the probably last sunny day this year in London and dream of the lovely beach in Poole..
xx
