I recently spent some time with the Legend camping in the New Forest area of the UK. The campsite was somewhere we had stayed before and so we knew the area – I think this helps with camping – a decent knowledge of where in the campsite is best for sun, toilet access and noise. The camping setup was pretty cool with rooftop tent and a gazebo thing or event shelter as I think it is formally known.
On the first full day down that way in Hampshire we went to Dorset to try and hunt for dinosaurs. Kimmeridge Bay called and we answered. There’s a short toll road down to the bay and then there is a pretty decent sized car park. Coffee was required from a caravan selling snacks and things and then we visited the Sea Life centre, except I don’t think it was called that. I used binoculars to look at the crabs close up and they were broadly terrifying. I have a pair of binoculars that can work from about 50cm to infinity – they are super special. The bay at Kimmeridge was interesting. There’s the UK’s first oil field pumping station, a slipway and loads of broken rocks from the small cliff that genuinely looks as though it’s going to slip into the sea at any time. We saw big cracks in the ground atop the cliffs and a reasonable distance back, it could be a warning sign that the whole thing is going to disappear.
After the bay we chose to go to Swanage. I wanted to see what this town looked like because judging by name only it doesn’t sound a great place to be. I think because it’s a combination of Swansea and Sewage. We parked on the sea front and tried to find something to eat. This proved more difficult that you would imagine because it was 1530 hours and Swanage doesn’t seem to think that is an appropriate time to fill our tummies. We tried a few places but they were either closed or the chef had just decided to stop for the day. We found a bakery that was open and ate some food sitting on the sea wall. I sat in bird shit. Out in the distance of the bay we could see a RN Wildcat helicopter practising winching people from boats – there was a RNLI boat out there from which they were raising people. That would be an excellent experience! I have to say that Swanage seemed a really lovely little place, there was even a dedicated sea swimming area with lifeguards.
The next day we drove to see the world’s tallest unreinforced concrete structure which is a tower built in the 1880s or so in the village of Sway. Every heard of Sway? No. You haven’t. Why? Because there isn’t a main road passing through it. To go to Sway you have to go to Sway. Not many people find it. Why would you? Unless you knew about the world’s tallest unreinforced concrete building. After staring at the tower which is literally someone’s home we found a lovely little café and ate food although we were close to the kitchen shut up shop time. This seems to be becoming a theme! After the café we walked a short distance to a cute little shop that sold loads of fine foods and drinks. Conversations were had with the owner and we discovered that the butchers opposite was rather renowned and people drive hours to buy food from it. We didn’t buy anything from the butchers because I don’t talk to people. We did buy stuff from the hamper shop.
When you fancy a nice hot breakfast bap try to make sure you don’t go to a Sainsbury’s just after they have moved their heated food section because you’ll find they won’t have turned on that section yet and you end up with unhappy people fed up at Sainsbury’s being disappointing twice in one week. We drove to Keyhaven, another one of those places I think you have to travel to because you won’t pass through it – a bit like Norfolk. The reason for a visit to Keyhaven was to catch a ferry (small ten person boat) to Hurst Castle. The castle was built to protect the Solent from attack which means it’s two miles out from the coast along a shingle spit. I’m sure the ferries are great fun but both our trips were made triggering by the company we had on board. Heading to the castle two people got on board with their large dogs. The dogs were fine but the people were annoying. The return journey was hampered by two people from the USA on board being very American. The castle was interesting, lots of spooky nooks and crannies, flood risks and no running drinking water. Electricity was provided by a large generator with an exhaust into the courtyard and toilets were fuelled with sea water, as were the taps. It’s an impressive piece of engineering. Such a shame it had to be built. We could easily see the Needles and the Isle Of Wight, the island was about 1200m away. There were lots of birds around, mainly swifts and they were feeding a lot.
On the return to mainland, I’m not sure it counts as being off the mainland though, we found a tapas bar, The Cave, in Millford on Sea. We got there five minutes before food stopped being served but they were willing to serve us. It was an interesting place set around the village green. The village seems to revolve around the green and that reminded me of my home village. I guess I was fortunate to grow up in what would be considered a classic village layout with cricket being played on the green and pubs and shops around that.
The final day was about packing away and journeying home back to Kent. I think there were some issues with Google Maps because it kept saying some major roads were shut but they weren’t. I wonder if people were messing around submitting “closed road” warnings for giggles. None of the overhead gantries along the main route had any information about road closures so we followed what should have been a standard route home. I say standard because I got distracted near the M3-M25 junction by an A380 flying into the clouds and so I would have had to make a very risky move to make the junction. I chose not to take that junction and I got sent around parts of south west London I’d not been to since 1995. There were real road closures closer to home which meant I had to find alternative routes across the river Medway. While heading to the “new” bridge I thought I’d fill the car up with petrol. I queued around the local Tesco but the queue was because the petrol station was being torn down to make a new one. The journey home was a test of patience really. But I got there.