The English South-West: Road Trip Edition

The May Bank Holiday weekend takes place on the first weekend of May each year in the UK. This year’s long weekend was record-breaking, the hottest temperatures recorded in thirty odd years.

As soon as the suns out in England, everyone breaks out from their dark corners and fills the beer gardens and parks with picnic blankets, cheap cider, and pale legs. It’s a bloody good time.

James and I made the most of the long weekend and hired a VW Camper car and went on a road trip around the south coast and national parks in Dorset and Devon.

We hired our Camper Car from Spaceships Rentals. It was a beaut wee car with barely any miles on the clock and we sure did break it in. Over the weekend we covered just over 500 miles (a great excuse to sing The Proclaimers). It was the first time I’ve driven since June last year so it was very exciting to get out on the road and have some transport freedom.

The first day we picked up the car and headed to Stonehenge (a pretty cool first stop). It’s amazing how old and massive they are. We’d been told it’s not worth paying money to see the stones. So, we didn’t buy tickets and we could still walk up reasonably close and have a clear view of the stones. So no complaints from us. Just be aware it can be a bit time-consuming to go there. It’s off the A303, once you’re at the welcome centre it’s still about a 20-minute walk to the stones through some paddocks, so be wary on wetter days.

Next stop for the day was Corfe Castle. In classic Ash and James fashion, we unintentionally turned up in the middle of a festival. We were lucky enough to experience the fantastic ruins of Corfe Castle during a Medieval festival. There were people all around the castle grounds dressed in old moccasin shoes, fighting with swords and shields and sitting amongst old style tents. This really made the castle come alive and it felt like we were back in time with a bustling marketplace down below the castle.

Sadly the castle is now in ruins, after orders by the Parliment to “slight it” (demolish it) in the 17th Century. Materials from the castle were used in the village for the construction of new buildings.

The view from the castle took you back in time with the hum of medievally-dressed people down below the castle.

We then spent the evening camping in our neat wee Camper Car near a beach. Instead of going with a camping style evening meal, we went for an English style evening meal and had a feed at a local village pub.

I woke early, before sunrise and took a lovely morning stroll on the beach with my camera. I saw some early morning fishermen and campers out and about, but mainly it was just peaceful.

We spent the day cruising along the Jurassic Coast of Dorset and into Devon county. Stopping off at Lyme Regis and Beer (yes a town called Beer, yes we only went there because of the name).

The Jurassic Coast beaches, where many fossils have been found some dating back 65 million years! Naturally, we were there during the Fossil Festival (it’s like the celebrations follow us). Unfortunately none of the activities co-insided with our timings in Lyme Regis.

When I was 7 years old, I wanted to be a Palentologist. I lived out that dream on a Saturday morning on the Jurassic Coast. We went in search of fossils along the beach and found (*clears throat* made) some pretty neat T-rex fossils.

Beer was actually quite a cute wee village. This was where we went swimming. As I mentioned before it was a weekend of very sunny and hot weather especially in the south of England so we made the most of it and cooled off in the water. Cooled off is an understatement. Froze our butts off is more accurate. Sitting in the stunning midday sun the water seemed like a good idea. I stood at the edge of the water for a good ten minutes before fully committing and run-diving into the sea. I attempted to stay in for a few seconds to see if I could get used to the temperature but there was NO chance of that. The water was like needles and my toes started losing circulation immediately so it was back to lazing in the sun on the warmth of the stoney beach.

After some missed turns on the road and driving along some incredibly narrow and rather driveway-like “roads,” we made it to Dartmoor National Park. It was so lovely to drive through such cute countryside, villages and hedges, lots and lots of hedges. If you’ve ever seen on British tv shows or movies with the really narrow single lane roads with hedges on either side, that’s exactly what a lot of the roads we drove on were like. It was quite scary and intimidating at first as it’s difficult to see further along the road but you soon get used to it. Luckily I only had to seriously reverse to let cars past a couple of times.

So we spent the afternoon cruising around Dartmoor through small villages and down to the river side. By the time we got there it was a little too chilly to swim, however, we set up our wee cooker and attempted to cook up a storm. This did NOT go to plan. We forgot oil. We had a new fry pan (NOT a non-stick pan, FYI) and sausages to cook. First, we just threw them on in the hope that there would be enough fat in the sausies to stop them sticking. No, that did not work, because “healthy” Ash got the lowest fat percentage sausages. We resorted to cooking them in beer, a bit of a waste really but it was either go hungry or go thirsty. This ended with average tasting sausages, less beer and a very very black burnt pan. Later we spent 3 hours over the course of the evening and following morning scrubbing to clean it. Needless to say, we will definitely plan our meals better next time we go camping, no one wants to sacrifice their beer for an average sausage.

We parked for the evening on a hill over looking the rolling green pastures of Dartmoor National Park. We set up our Camper Car with the full awning out and felt like really cool kids living the #vanlife.

I don’t think there is a better feeling than waking up camping, even in a van. We woke up to the sun rising over the hills at about 6 am. I shot out of bed and went for a walk in the early morning sun once again. Naturally, James stayed in bed, rolling his eyes at my morning-person-ness.

I reckon one of the best things about camping is setting up the gas cooker on the dewy grass and waiting and waiting and waiting for the water to boil. Then pouring a hot coffee and enjoying the view while you sip away, listening to the birds. It’s magical.

The awesome thing about Dartmoor is there are wild horses just chillin’ everywhere. As you drive past big rocks, villages, phone booths, car parks, there are beautiful wild horses grazing about.

Later in the morning we went to Haytor Hill and climbed the rocks on the top for a brilliant view of the National Park. The rocks were large but well used and there were actually steps cut into the side of the rocks, which made for an easier climb.

Having travelled to convoluted way to Devon we thought we’d speed home on the motorway. Of course, being a long weekend, it wasn’t particularly speedy but faster than the way we’d come. On the way, we stopped off at Avebury where we walked around some more standing stones. There were a lot more at Avebury and although they weren’t in a seemingly ritualistic circle like Stonehenge, you could go right up to them and touch them.

It was fun following the trails around the town and trying to come up with reasons or stories of why the stones were there and how they got there over four thousand odd years ago. In terms of time, the people who existed with those standing stones are as close to the Ancient Romans as we are to the Ancient Romans, just the other side of the timeline. It’s mind-blowing!

It was such a great weekend away, awesome to have some travel freedom again. We loved our road trip in the wee Camper Car. I would definitely recommend hiring a Spaceships Camper Car to a couple wanting a long weekend away. It’s accommodation and transport all in one. Magic!

I loved exploring England further, I was pleasantly surprised at how blimin’ beautiful the English countryside is.