Friday Night Drive to Corfe

We left Gloucester at 6pm for the 2.5 hour drive to our last minute AirBNB next to Corfe Castle. After a quick dinner stop at Burger King which I was not happy about as I had been on quite a strict diet since the start of January we arrived shortly after 9pm.

The property was a small 2 bedroom conversion which was perfect for us for a weekend. The building was really old and we think may have been part of the castle at point.

Saturday – Studland, Old Harry Rocks, Durlston and Corfe Castle

Shell Bay, Studland

It was a beautiful morning so we set off early for Studland Nature Reserve which was only 10 minutes away. After finding a geo-cache we parked at Shell Bay and made our way along a wooden bridge across a lake full of reeds to the beach.

^{Walkway to Shell Bay where Tom and Izzy spent ages playing with the reed stalks}

The beach was super quiet (probably because it was before 10am on a cold February morning) so we had a short stroll, played with the waves and did some photography.

^{Fun on Shell Bay}

Old Harry Rocks

Our next stop was Old Harry Rocks, which are three chalk formations in the sea and include a stack and a stump (most kids learn about them in geography at some point) We hadn’t visited them for about 6 years. We parked at the main car park and then followed the trail along the SW Coast Path to the headland. It was only about 15 minutes. We were spoilt by the weather as we had blue sky and sea which made the chalk cliffs really stand out. Stu always gets really stressed about the cliff edges so we had to stay a good 10 meters away from the ledge! We tried to teach Tom a bit about the geography of the area as it is in his GCSE syllabus but he was not having it!!

^{Old Harry Rocks and the headland}

Durlston Country Park

After a quick pitstop in Swanage to buy Tom and Izzy some chips we carried on along the coast to Durlston Country Park where we could walk and see a lighthouse. The walk had beautiful views of the coastline and we also passed some ruins of what we think was an old mine.

^{The SW Coast Path at Durlston Country Park}

We made it to Anvil Point Lighthouse and I was really excited when I realised there were some holiday cottages there!!! Stu tried to look them up to see how to rent them but didn’t have enough reception.

^{Anvil Point Lighthouse}

Corfe Castle

It was now the middle of the afternoon so we headed back to the holiday cottage in Corfe. Tom and Izzy just wanted to spend some time on their tablets so Stu and I decided to leave them at home and wander up to the Castle – which was literally 2 minutes up the road from us. As we were National Trust members it was free to enter so it didn’t matter if we only spent 30 minutes there.

Corfe Castle was built by William the Conqueror in the 11th century. We climbed up to the ruins – passing a teddy bear on a zip line which we thought was quite cool. We also saw a steam train come into the station.

^{Corfe Castle}

Sunday – Lulworth Cove, Durdle Door and Portland Bill Lighthouse

Lulworth Cove

We got up early to pack for home so we could make the most of our last day in Dorset and our first stop was Lulworth Cove. We parked in the carpark next to it (which was already filling up at 9.30am) and headed to the beach which was really quiet.

^{Stu and Izzy admiring the sea at Lulworth Cove}

We followed a path which took up up to the headland which gave stunning views of the coast.

Durdle Door

We had considered driving to Durdle Door but were worried that the car park would be full so decided to walk instead. It wasn’t a long walk but it involved climbing over a hill so was quite strenuous. Stu and I were impressed at how quick we did it and decided that all the running we had been doing since the start of January was paying off! We passed loads of people on the path and no-one was able to catch up with us!

^{Durdle Door from above}

We ventured down to the beach – which is really stony and quite steep in places. Tom and Izzy played by the waves for a bit before we headed back to the car. We did find the climb from the beach back to the path quite hard – but we were trying to do it as fast as we could!

^{Durdle Door Beach – may look warm but it was cold!}

Portland Bill Lighthouse

We needed one more place to visit before heading home so looked at Google maps and saw there was a lighthouse on the Isle of Portland (just passed Weymouth) and thought that it wouldn’t be too much of a detour.

When we arrived Tom and Izzy didn’t want to go exploring so we left them but it wasn’t long before they joined us! We walked around the outside of the lighthouse and then found some rocks to play on for 20 minutes or so before returning to the car and heading home to Gloucester.