Karen
Last August I took leave of my senses completely and spent 6 nights backpacking in the south of the UK with my husband, our four year old and our seven year old.
We decided that we’d like to see some of the Jurassic Coast and so our route was based around that, as well as visiting my sister and making sure the boys had a big treat at the end of the trip.
I’m not sure why I didn’t blog about the trip in great detail on my return, though I do wonder if I was all backpacked out by the end of it and perhaps couldn’t bear to type the ‘b-word’ until my limbs stopped aching. Who knows. Anywho, last week we spent a week in West Wales (in proper accommodation and having travelled there in the car) and I got chatting to the lovely Jak from Jak’s Trips during a dolphin spotting boat trip. I told her briefly of our backpacking adventures and realised that actually, I’d barely documented it at all. What a rubbish blogger I am!
So here begins a short series based on our crazy backpacking trip. Today, I’m just going to run through the route and the itinerary.
Route
Monday
Train from Manchester Piccadilly to Exeter St. David
Time in Exeter
Train from Exeter St. Thomas to Topsham
1 mile walk to camp site
Overnight at Highfield Farm Camp Site, Topsham
Tuesday (Rowan’s 5th Birthday)
Walk 2.4 miles to Clyst St. Mary
X53 Jurassic Coast bus to Lyme Regis
Day on the beach at Charmouth, searching for fossils and smashing big rocks
Overnight at Cummins Farm, Charmouth
Wednesday 5th August
Morning at the beach at Weymouth
Afternoon at Sealife Weymouth
X53 to Lyme Regis
Second night at Cummins Farm, Lyme Regis
Thursday 6th August
X31 bus Lyme Regis – Axminster
Train Axminster – Salisbury
Stonehenge tour bus Salisbury – Stonehenge return
Overnight at Salisbury Camping & Caravan Club Site
Friday 7th August
Train Salisbury – Taplow, Maidenhead
Plan was to walk 1.7 miles to the campsite but actually we walked 0.4 miles to Tesco, bought beer and called a cab.
Stay at Amerden Caravan & Camping
Saturday 8th August
Get collected/rescued by Laura & Kris
Spend the day at LEGOland Windsor
Stay at Laura & Kris’ house in a proper bed.
Sunday 9th August
Train from Ebbsfleet to London, London to Manchester
Wow! That was quite an adventurous undertaking. My friend and I take our 5 boys (our husbands stay home working) on camping trips each summer. The car is loaded top to bottom for our ten day outings. I could not imagine trying to figure out how to take everything we’d need in backpacks. Last summer, we loaded the boys in the car and drove them 4000 miles round-trip to see Pikes Peak in Colorado, Yellowstone in Wyoming, and Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota.
That sounds amazing! I can’t imagine travelling all those miles – the whole of the UK is less than 1000 🙂