Today is Monday, September 4th. We scheduled ourselves to leave the Isle of Wight on a ferry at noon today. Interestingly, last night, we received notice that our BnB in Weymouth had been canceled, some mix up in scheduling of the flat there. So we scrambled this morning to acquire a new place. We ended up finding a room in a ‘lodge’ at a caravan park…something like a KOA park. More to come on that.
After getting some pastries for breakfast at Sainsbury, we packed up the car and headed to the western most part of the island to see what is called The Needles. There they had a chairlift ride that took you down to a beach. But the interesting thing here, which we really did not experience, was the fact that there were 5 different types of sand found on beaches here in this cove. I don’t know, from a distance, it all looked the same to me. :-) The chairlift ride was fun even though heights are not my thing. The view was amazing as we looked at the white rock formations that jetted out into the ocean. For a small fee, we took a 20 minute boat ride out around the formations that gave us an up close view of the rock formations as well as a nice view back at the harbor. The Needles location also had other things to do for kids and families. It was almost amusement park like with a few rides and things to do. It seemed like a nice place. But we were on the clock to get to the ferry. So we really only had time to do the chairlift and boat rides there. It would have been nice to do some hiking there as there is a National Trust site there that you need to hike to. No time to do that though.
The ferry was only about a 20 minute drive from the Needles attraction and finding it was pretty easy. We arrived a bit early and were boarded early. We also departed about 45 minutes earlier too. So that was good. After leaving the ferry we headed north into Bournemouth. Denise and I had stayed a night before in Bournemouth when we took our first European trip many, many years ago with Karlie. The Brits love Bournemouth as it has some of the nicest beaches in south England. Anyway, we found a beach there but it was so crowded and there was no parking. So we decided to not try and park there. We went into the city center, parked the car and went fo find something to eat. We ended up at a Subway and a McDonalds. Denise and I had Subway which was pretty good I must say. But the area was kind of dirty so we did not stay long there.
We continued our journey north. As we drove we looked for something to go and see. We noticed a National Trust castle fairly close. So we set out to see it. It was called Corfe Castle. It was an amazing stop. The little town below the castle was medieval like and pretty quaint. The castle was amazing with a nice grounds to sit and relax at. They had a place where you could use archery equipment and so on. It was a great stop.
After visiting the castle, it was time to head to our next BnB. Like I said earlier, this turned out to be a Caravan Park named Newland’s Holiday Park. We each had a room waiting for us. But each room had 2 bedrooms. We could have had both couples stay in one room. But there was only one bathroom. And having space is always a good thing. The rooms were clean and nice. We overlooked a pool. The area did have many types of ways to stay there. They had ‘Glamping’, places for tents and bigger lodges. Lots there.
After checking in, we asked a young lady where to get some dinner. She suggested a place in Lyme Regis.. So off we went. It turned out to be quite the ride down into the marina and beach area there. It was extremely busy as the weather was heating up and this being on the Jurassic. Coast, a very popular area. As a matter of fact, between Charmouth Beach and Lyme Regis Beach people search for fossils as apparently it easy to find some on the beaches there. We didn’t find any but we did find a nice place to eat overlooking the beach there. We were there until dusk at which time we headed back to our BnB for a nights rest. Great day of seeing things we had hoped to see.
Pictures:
Lyme Regis beach….pretty nice there. But the sand was imported in…not original.
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