The Chaotic Campervaners go to Charmouth Camping and Caravanning Club Site, Monkton Wyld
Charmouth Camping & Caravanning Club Site, Monkton Wyld
Deer feeding, fossil hunting, digger driving and lots of animals!
We arrived at the Charmouth Camping and Caravanning Club Site in the sunshine ready for a busy (but rather wet) 5 nights of camping. Charmouth CCCS in Monkton Wyld is an award winning campsite with plenty to offer! This site; on the Dorset and Devon border; has approximately 200 pitches, free WIFI, a shop, 2 facility blocks which have toilets, showers & washrooms, a large play area with swings, slides, climbing apparatus etc, a games room, laundry facilities and so much more!
Having pitched our tent, we decided to try out the takeaway pizzas from the amazing onsite pizza van. There are 3 different food vans at different times throughout the week.
We ordered a meat feast and a vegetarian pizza, plus also a chicken curry (as they also serve a meat and a vegetable curry). The food was delicious!
For our first day camping, we decided to have a campsite day. We spent the day exploring the campsite, playing on the amazing play equipment (we particularly enjoyed the 'stand on seasaw'), playing air hockey in the games room and generally chilling out.
The following day, we decided to visit World of Country Life in Exmouth, just under an hours drive from the campsite. We had been there a couple of times a few years ago and we were very keen to visit again. We pre-booked our tickets on line. It's the same price as it is if you buy your tickets upon arrival, but at busy times such as school holidays it is best to pre-book to avoid disappointment.
There are scheduled activities throughout the day such as goat walking, birds of prey flying display, small animal handling etc, as well as plenty of play equipment. But for us, the highlight of the day is the Deer Train Safari. This is a tractor pulled land-train that takes you up to a field of deer that then approach the train allowing you to feed them by hand. There is a small extra charge for the train ride and you book this upon arrival at reception.
Also, when arriving at World of Country Life, you can buy food to feed some of the animals such as the goats. Our Top tip would be to do all of the scheduled activities and the deer train early on in the day, leaving plenty of time to explore the play equipment.
The following day, as we had booked to go fossil hunting with Lyme Regis Museum we decided to spend the first part of the day exploring Lyme Regis. During the summer holidays between 10.30am and 7.30pm, Lyme Regis has a park and ride service running at approximately 17 minute intervals. Parking in Lyme Regis can be quite difficult so if you are visiting during the summer and you are able to use the park and ride, we would definitely recommend it! You can find all the information about the Lyme Regis park and ride here.
We have visited Lyme Regis many times, it is one of our favourite seaside towns. But every time we visit, we find something new to explore! As the weather wasn't very good, we decided to visit the high street. There are lots of very interesting independent shops to explore, plus also a few well known chains. So it is definitely worth a visit. We particularly enjoyed the Lyme Regis Bookshop which we had to prise our son away from!
He then spent most of the rest of the morning with his head inside one of the books that we had bought!
Lyme Regis is a very dog friendly town. We noticed a lot of shops that said dogs (or dry dogs) welcome. And although dogs are not allowed on the main beach over the summer months, they are allowed on 3 other beaches in the area. Check out all the dog friendly beaches on the Jurassic coast here. This website also has plenty of information about what to do, places to eat etc on the Jurassic Coast.
After a much needed lunch at The Kiosk on the promenade, it was time for a wander around the Cobb (the harbour wall) area, visit the RNLI shop and spend some time on the beach. Don't forget to check out Lifeguard patrol times by following this link.
* This beautiful Butterflies Gold (by artist Gabby Malpas) Family Special Edition PACMAT is available (with a 12% discount) by using this code: ChaoticCVS. This discount code is valid for any PACMATs (discount code is not valid for any accessories)
It was then time for us to visit Lyme Regis Museum which is a short walk from the beach. The museum stands on the site of Mary Anning's home. You can find out all about Mary Anning and how she contributed to our understanding of fossils by following this link to the museum's website.
We had booked to go on one of Lyme Regis Museum's very popular fossil hunting walks which also includes free entry to the museum. So having had a look around the museum, which is definitely worth a visit and has been described by Sir David Attenborough as "A remarkable museum, a gem" (cited on Lyme Regis Museum's website), we met our guides for the fossil walk.
The fossil walk takes about 2.5 hours and begins with a talk by the experts about fossils, how they are created and how to find them, before relocating to the beach where we began our search. The fossil walks are understandably very popular so you do need to book well in advance. You can book them on the museum website along with many other walks that the museum offers. It is essential that when doing the fossil walk, that you wear sturdy shoes and dress suitably for the weather on the day. We went on our fossil hunt in the pouring rain and although our son was mostly dry due to wearing waterproof trousers as well as his coat, we wore only waterproof jackets and were soaked through to the skin! However, if it is dry, make sure that you wear sunscreen and a hat as there is no shelter from the sun.
We had simply 'the best time' fossil hunting with Chris and Paul. We only went fossil hunting in the first place because our son was very keen to. However, we ended up enjoying it as much as he did and we even found some ammonites! We are all now looking forward to booking our next fossil hunting walk with Lyme Regis Museum.
The 2 ammonites that The Bunny Whisperer found on our fossil walk.
After the fossil hunting; as we squelched our way through Lyme Regis; we were so hugely grateful when we waved down the park and ride bus who; I'm very pleased to say; stopped to pick up 3 extremely drenched people!
The following day was to be the last full day of our holiday in Charmouth. We were still experiencing typical British summer weather. So, where do you go when you're on holiday and it's raining? A place with lots of mud of course! DIGGERLAND!!!
Diggerland is about 40 minutes drive from Charmouth. We had visited Diggerland a few years ago and so we were all very excited about the day ahead! Our top tips for visiting Diggerland are:
1. Pre-book on line as you get a substantial discount for doing so.
2. Visit when the weather is not so nice as it is much less busy.
3. Whatever the weather, make sure that you wear suitable clothes. It is extremely mudding in places, so wear clothes and shoes that you don't mind getting muddy!
There are some height and age restrictions, but you can check this out on the website before you visit.
If you love diggers then this is the place to go! Even if you don't love diggers, you'll still have simply the best fun! Our son's favourite was 'Joyrider' where he learnt to drive a real 4x4.
My favourite was Stack Attack and Bakerboy's favourite was driving the JCB (which we all had a turn at driving).
We had such an amazing day at Diggerland. We didn't have to wait longer than a couple of minutes at any 'ride', we tried out everything that we wanted to (several times) and the staff were so helpful and genuinely seemed to enjoy their job. A special mention to Ian and Marcus who were amazing teaching our son to drive the 4x4 and the JCB.
Diggerland, we will be back!
The following day, it was time to pack up our tent and head home. But not before a cheeky stop at Felicity's Farm Shop for a few treats.
We really enjoyed our time at Charmouth Camping and Caravanning Club Site, Monkton Wylde. We had 3 amazing days out and although we generally like to stay at smaller campsites (Charmouth, Monkton Wyld is the largest campsite that we have stayed at) there are a lot of things that we really do like about it.
The site has everything that you need and more! The pitches are a generous size and are divided up with hedging making it feel quite cosy. The facilities in the new block are fabulous and although the facilities in the stone block need some updating, they are spacious, plentiful and very clean. The children's play area definitely ticks all the boxes, the staff were very friendly and helpful and of course the food from the pizza van was delicious.
Our only complaints are that firstly we weren't offered a choice of pitches. Where we were was very close to a washing up station, a rubbish and recycling area and was next to an area of road where a lot of people seemed to walk their dogs. We didn't mind this as we love dogs and often went to say hello to the dogs. But it did mean that it was rather noisy at times. But that said, we didn't really mind our pitch, but we did feel that maybe it would have been nice to experience a different area of the site as this was our third time camping in this section of the campsite. And secondly that when we phoned to book, we asked for a grass pitch with electric hook up. We were told that there weren't any available as most of their pitches are all-purpose pitches. These are pitches that are bound gravel. Unfortunately, as it was very wet, even with a footprint (to protect underneath the groundsheet) and 2 door mats, small stones did get into our tent which has caused some slight damage to our ground sheet.
However, although Charmouth (Monkton Wylde) is a large site and we're not fans of camping on all purpose pitches, we did really enjoy our stay and we would definitely return. But only if we were able to have a grass pitch with electric hook up.
)Finally...
* Please note that I have been gifted my PACMAT (free of charge) by Rubbastuff in able to produce a review. My review will be posted shortly, but please be aware that I genuinely really do love my PACMAT and all my views on PACMAT and Rubbastuff are my own views. The 12% discount code applies to PACMATs only and does not apply to any accessories etc. Remember to enter code: ChaoticCVS at check out. PACMATs are lightweight, compact, waterproof, washable, durable and are made in Britain. Rubbastuff are an amazing, small family business and they have a beautiful range of PACMATs to suit everyone's taste! To take a look at their full range of products, follow this link.
Don't forget to check out our Meet The Team post and you can also find out all about our camping trips last year to Moreton and Salisbury.
Follow this link to our YouTube channel where we will be adding vlogs about our stay at Charmouth and the days out that we went on.
Thank you SO MUCH for reading our blog, we really do appreciate it!
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