Around Swanage with three small boys

We spent last week camping half way between Corfe Castle and Swanage and this post goes through the places we tried. There is loads to do in the area - we easily filled our five days and made particularly good use of our National Trust membership!

1. Shell Bay - first beach day
Glad we got there fairly early (armed with our National Trust cards for free parking) as the car park isn't big and the alternative seemed to be parking up and trudging along the road. The beach was lovely, good shallow waters for the boys and I enjoyed watching the ferry and the traffic in and out of Poole harbour. It was a bit of a challenge to find sand that was wet enough for shapes and sandcastles - most of the beach was too fine and dry above the tide line which suited me just fine but not so good for the boys.

2. Knoll Beach - beach day number two
This was the complete opposite of Shell Bay, crazy busy and not the most successful beach trip we've ever had. We went back again later in the week in the rain when it was nearly deserted and it was much nicer! It has a good National Trust cafe and shop. It might have provided us with the shortest-lived spade in history - Mark splashed out on a wooden handled spade and about three digs in to building a sand boat the plastic shovel broke off.

3. Corfe Castle
Everyone enjoyed the castle (and the family trail!) and the footpaths around the bottom. It was probably the wrong day to decide to buy lunch rather than taking a picnic - the pubs felt surprisingly touristy and under pressure although it may have been better if we had walked a bit further from the castle.

4. Swanage Steam Railway
A very civilised way to travel, particularly as we could walk down from our tent to the station. We got the steam train when we came down for the weekend in March as well and really enjoyed it.

5. Durlston Castle
An unexpectedly good find when we had a couple of hours to fill one afternoon, and we could have gone back and spent more time there (not least because we didn't have time to do the Elf and Fairy trail, and W loves a trail!). The cafe was fun - lots of seats out on the roof of the castle with really good views across the sea.

6. Kimmeridge
Another surprisingly good few hours spent here one morning. We had a poke in the rock pools, built some more rock towers (moving on when part of the cliff behind us collapsed!) and had a look around the sea centre. Funnily enough, when the weather cooled a little and the pressure to make the most of the summer was off, we seemed to have a much nicer time.

7. Putlake Adventure Farm
The last morning was very wet. I'm always a little reluctant to go to farm parks when we're on holiday because you could be anywhere in the country but sometimes needs must. It did the job, the boys enjoyed cuddling a guinea pig and W fed some goats and everyone played in the soft play during the worst of the rain. Ironically, after a week of beaches they probably built their best sand creation in the sandpit at the farm - think the sand was just the right level of damp!

8. Swanage Town
We spent a couple of afternoons poking around Swanage. The toy shop in the town was amazing - it had the most comprehensive selection of Lego I've ever seen (they had Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them Lego - who knew such a thing existed!). The ice cream kiosk on the beach kept everyone happy with a massive tub of choc brownie ice cream for T and some delicious orange dairy-free sorbet for me and W (that A enjoyed as well!).

9. Harmans Cross
We camped just up the hill from Harmans Cross and the views across to Corfe Castle were pretty impressive. We could walk down the hill to the railway and there was a good park next to the station for some easy entertainment.