This was Corfe Castle and the model village. It's a lovely place despite us all getting soaked and hiding in their summer house for an eternity whilst it absolutely threw it down, it was still worthwhile. Beautiful gardens with fun activities for kids and a pleasant tea room. This area is of course Enid Blyton territory and her Ginger Pop shop is here - it's rather tiny (there's a larger shop in Poole) but full of retro treasures. I bought some badges and card illustrations of Eileen Soper who worked with Blyton. There were some lovely pretty houses here and the sight of an honesty box and a plant stall made me whoop. I bought some lovely red veined sorrel to add to salads - a perennial so a great holiday momento.
On another day we stopped at Dorchester and had a little look around. I would have loved to go into the Dinosaur Museum but Little Bird was not into going inside anywhere this holiday - groan. Maybe next time! I had heard about an area called Poundbury that had some involvement with Prince Charles and I was intrigued to take a look. It's basically a housing development with it's own farm, garden centre, restaurants etc... all very pretty. Dorset Cereals are based here. It was fun to nosy at the houses whilst Little Bird played in a small playground and I had a great mooch around the garden centre.
Swanage was a total gem. We hadn't planned on going but I saw the sign and shouted 'Quick! Go there now...' and was so glad we did - it was absolutely beautiful. Loads of little shops, an amazing train station where you could catch a steam engine to Corfe, great views and seaside charm. I am totally in love with Swanage. You can see the Old Harry Rocks out at sea in the last picture. Such fun for a geography swot like me.
Chortle, chortle at Cerne Abbas. Pretty amazing history which I won't detail here but the link does. There is another chalk hill figure in the area, the Osmington White Horse which we could see from the road up from our caravan site. Blows my mind that these were created so long ago and yet there they still are today for us to see.
Next stop Weymouth ......
