We’ve had such glorious weather this summer. We’ve enjoyed weekends away and days out in the sunshine so I guess it’s only to be expected that the weekend of our New Forest adventure the heavens decided to open and the sun did not make an appearance at any point during our stay (well not until 12 noon on Sunday when we were leaving to go home)! Oh and did I mention, we were staying in a caravan?

New Forest Club Site

Despite the weather we still had a wonderful time at the Caravan and Motorhome Club’s New Forest Site. I work for the Club and absolutely love everything the organisation stands for; enjoying the great outdoors and spending quality time with friends and family and the other weekend I was lucky enough to be able to do both.

Our good friends are campervanners and members of the Club so we decided to meet them on site and managed to get a pitch next to each other, perfect as my little man Sam loves his best buddy Donnie, who at 3 is just a year older than him, so lots of opportunity for them to play together. We arrived late Friday afternoon having finished work early. After a warm welcome from the site staff we found our friends who were already there with the BBQ going – perfect timing! The staff caravan we were staying in has a fixed bed so we just had to unload our bedding, put the food and drink in the fridge and set up Sam’s pop up travel cot tent in the living area and we were good to go. The weather was already pretty awful but our friends have a large air awning which attaches to their campervan so we were able to relax and chat, cosy and sheltered from the rain. The boys had their little camping chairs set up and were already laughing and running around in the awning having the best time before I could even get the prosecco open! We had a delicious BBQ; burgers, sausages and chicken kebabs.

I know I’m biased, I work for the Club and have done for almost 8 years, but one of the best things about Club Sites for us as a family has to be how well maintained the sites are and how family friendly they are too. After dinner we took the boys to the toddler/baby room for a bath – they had more fun splashing each other rather than actually getting clean! It was then time for pyjamas and a bedtime story before getting cosy in the caravan and having an early night for the next day’s adventures.

We didn’t get much sleep, mostly due to the fact Sam ended up in bed with us so all three of us were squeezed into the small double fixed bed, but I finally managed to drift off only to be woken up by the pitter patter of heavy raindrops on the caravan roof the next morning. I may not have managed to get much sleep – thanks to a very wriggly two year old who took up most of the bed whilst I was squished up against the caravan wall and Mark, my husband, was left dangling off the other side, but the caravan was certainly very cosy, especially in the rain. A quick shower in the immaculately clean shower block, raincoats on and balance bike and helmets at the ready and we were off to explore the site. Despite the rain the boys had great fun on their bikes and playing in the fabulous play park on the site. We visited the little site shop at reception to get a fresh baguette, some chocolate croissants and orange juice, and then back to the caravan for bacon baguettes.

Family Friendly Site

Play Park

Tourer Explorer Activity Book

Beaulieu National Motor Museum

With our bellies full we were ready for the day ahead. Fortunately we had planned a trip to Beaulieu National Motor Museum. As a lot of the attractions here are inside and undercover, our day was not affected by the terrible weather.

It has been awhile since I last visited Beaulieu, in fact not since I was at Bournemouth University where I did a project on Beaulieu for my Tourism Marketing course. It was still just as wonderful as I remember and if you love cars, then it’s heaven!

We visited the ‘on screen’ exhibit first, featuring cars from TV and movies. I got very excited to see the Ford Anglia, the flying car from Harry Potter’s Chamber of Secrets. Next we went to see the Top Gear Show – it’s a short film with Top Gear highlights but quite amusing and we got to sit on the Top Gear couch afterwards. The Top Gear exhibit was much more exciting with lots of vehicles from the show, some of which you could get inside. Our next stop was to the monorail for a short 10 minute ride around part of the estate. The monorail even goes through the roof of the motor museum. The mile long monorail is actually the oldest monorail in England and it was the perfect opportunity for us to view the gardens from up high without getting wet. There are two stations and the second station stops close to the Alice in Wonderland Garden and we had fun pointing out the characters.

Finally we headed towards the main museum. If you’ve never been to Beaulieu before you will be blown away by the cars and motorbikes on display, including early motors, F1 cars and land speed record breakers. Of course I had to visit the Caravan and Motorhome Club exhibit which outlines the history of the Club through the years right back from when it was founded in 1907. Opposite this exhibit was the Lego caravan – a record breaking full sized caravan made entirely out of Lego – 215,158 bricks to be precise. Amazing!

If the weather had been nicer we would have loved to stay longer to explore the grounds and abbey ruins, but we still managed to have a few hours of fun and the visit was topped off with a trip to the gift shop, full of treasures. Sam chose a £5 police car, so you don’t have to spend a fortune in here either to get a treat. It was now late afternoon so we decided to stop off at a little pub called the Filly in the New Forest, about 10 minutes’ drive from the Club site, for an early dinner. This is a lovely little pub, with highchairs, games and books. The boys attempted to play connect four and although Sam was too young to understand the rules he had fun slotting the pieces into place. There wasn’t a children’s menu but we were advised that they did smaller portions of everything on the main menu so Sam had fish and chips – which actually came out massive but was only £5 so good value. I had homemade soup and cottage pie – perfect for warming me up on such a miserable day.

Back for another evening in the caravan and Sam slept much better that night so I managed to actually get some sleep too – bliss.

It was still raining the next day so a bit tricky for our friends putting the awning down. We took turns looking after the boys as we packed up. The site gave us a free activity book, Tourer Explorer, so they had fun with the stickers and this kept them occupied in the caravan whilst the heavy rain continued to fall relentlessly. Finally we were ready to go. We said goodbye to the caravan and the very friendly staff who had helped us during the stay.

Setley Ridge

We had hoped to go for a walk in the New Forest to see the New Forest ponies but the rain hadn’t stopped so we went to the very lovely Rosie Lea tea rooms, just outside of Brockenhurst, for a late cooked breakfast. Again these tea rooms didn’t have a children’s menu but they had a child version of a full English which Sam happily wolfed down whilst I enjoyed the veggie version. Although slightly on the pricey side, our bill for the three of us came to over £30, it was delicious. I loved how the quaint the tea rooms looked and all the ornaments they had on display with lovely quotes on chalkboards, it really set the atmosphere of the place and is definitely somewhere I would return.

The tea rooms were actually located at Setley Ridge Garden Centre, the perfect place to visit on a rainy day. The garden centre had some beautiful items and if our car wasn’t fully loaded with all our weekend gear I would have been sorely tempted to indulge in a spot of shopping. My other half did manage to surprise me by buying a beautiful pressed flower glass frame, which looks stunning in our bay window, particularly when the sun shines through. There was also a farm shop, selling local produce, including bottles of wine from Setley Ridge Vineyard. We left with fresh farm eggs and locally grown fruit and veg.

By now the rain had eventually stopped and the sun was coming out, just in time for our journey home! We had a short but wonderful weekend away, and even though the weather tried to ruin our fun, we had a great time. The New Forest is a truly magical place and I can’t wait to come back and see it in the sun!

Top 5 Essentials when camping with toddlers

• 1. Pop up tent bed – a camp within a camp, lightweight and can be put up wherever you go. We have the NSA Deluxe UV Travel Cot which also offers sunshelter and insect mesh protection.
  2. Balance bike – we had great fun exploring the campsite on the bike (obviously mindful of the traffic on site and little ones were supervised at all times!) We have the Chillafish BMXi Balance Bike which comes in different colours.
  3. Sleep bag – even though my son now sleeps with a duvet, sleep bags are perfect when camping as you can pop them in the sleep bag and they can stay up a little later than normal but still be nice and snug.
  4. Kid’s camping chair – my son loved having his own little chair and it was also very handy for mealtimes too. We got our tiger camping chairs from Robert Dyas.
  5. A campsite that’s got facilities for children, like the New Forest Caravan and Motorhome Club Site we stayed on that had a family bathroom (with bath, shower, sunk and toilet), play park and tourer explorer children’s activity book.
     

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