Washingpool Farm CL Dorset 30th Sept - 9th Oct ( 9 nights )

This really is our favourite time of the year to go away, warm enough to enjoy the sun but not too warm to walk with the dogs. A change of scenery is always lovely but the scenery in Dorset is stunning and the views from Washingpool Farm are no exception.

The pitches are spacious with water and electric to each pitch, the only criticism is that, as with most CL's, the hard standing could do with a weeding. It is a pain trying to stay level when there is a clump of grass right by the wheel. It inevitably changes the level of the van when the ground dries out. It was wet when we arrived, though it did stay dry for the rest of the day, but then it bucketed down through the night. Our first morning we woke up to beautiful sunshine which set in for the whole week, so by mid week the van had dropped in level the side of the weeds. I don't think the CL owners are aware that if the vans not level the blinking shower doesn't drain properly!

Anyway it didn't really detract from the lovely site!

Washingpool farm has the most glorious farm shop and restaurant. We didn't eat in there but bought most of our food from the shop. Heavenly fresh local produce made self catering a real pleasure. We often watched the farmers hands bringing in the produce we ate for dinner and as it was the week of the potato harvest we ended up bringing a sackful home.

One unfortunate consequence of picking the week we did though was the filming of 'Broadchurch'. They filmed on the Sunday night on the farm ..something that the owners failed to inform us of. We arrived home after a day out to find a load of vans and people milling around ..we though they were doing some work to the roof of the shop, the noise kept us awake until gone 3 in the morning. It wasn't until late the next day that we found out what was going on which we though was very discourteous to us as paying guests.

Anyway, Washingpool Farm wasn't the only place they were filming 'Broadchurch'. The crew were also in West Bay ..

All very exciting if it wasn't for the hanging around waiting for the filming to clear away from the places we wanted to walk and the problem of keeping one very yappy rescue Schnauzer quiet lol.

We will definitely be going back to this site next year as it is so central to explore the Jurassic Coast. We had some lovely cliff walks and spent a fun couple of hours fossil hunting on Charmouth beach.

August Bank Holiday 24th - 29th Aug (5 nights)

This post is very late as my laptop gave up the ghost ..and despite being away for repair for weeks on end I have ended up buying a new one.

We went back to Dan yr Ogof so we could be close to home ..We were baby sitting my grandkids rabbit so we had to go back and fore to see to him. It was an unplanned long weekend and Steve had to work the saturday but it was still a fab break. We had bought new awning floor tiles so it was also an opportunity to try them out before our trip to Dorset. They are light weight foam and brilliant for insulating against the cold and stopping internal condensation in the awning. Another first on this trip was the cadac being used as a proper BBQ ..Steve had only ever used the skillet and was quite surprised how good the meat tasted.