As we sit on the edge of Dartmoor, wondering why it’s been raining all night in the middle of a heat wave I realised that I had never finished our last excursion.

Arriving home is always a busy time and inevitably I forget to record the final blog entry. This trip to the Isle of Purbeck was no exception so here is the belated record of the last couple of days of our late July jaunt.

I cast my mind back to Friday the 25th July 2025 and we awoke to another glorious summer day. After gorging on a bowl of Fruit n Fibre for breakfast we headed for Corfe Castle via the Ridgeway which runs at the back of the campsite. It’s a steep climb but the views across the campsite and later across to Corfe Castle are magnificent.

Once at Corfe Castle we headed to the railway station and caught the next train to Swanage. Swanage railway is a Heritage line which has been reconstructed from nothing in 1976, after the seven miles of line was demolished in 1972. It operates heritage trains along part of the 10 mile former branch line between Wareham and Swanage.

Lunch was a late affair at the Fox Inn in Corfe castle and our return hike to the campsite headed through the lowland fields, south of the site.

Saturday was the start of Swanage carnival week and the Red Arrows display kicked things off at 11:00am. We drove to Knoll beach which has a free (for members) National Trust carpark and unusually, caters extremely well for Motorhomes and Campervans. Moes lifetime membership (which funnily enough we had purchased at a previous visit to Corfe Castle) came good again. Here we watched the display before driving further west to Seatown, near Bridport.

At Seatown we booked into the Golden Cap holiday park. We needed some decent facilities and whilst the best touring pitches were all full, we found a spot in the large camping field “Berries Field”. Sunday lunch we met friends Bob and Mandy at the Anchor Inn, Seatown. The weather was now wet and so we decided we would head back to East Devon later that day, winding up our little mini-break to get our Campervan Nellie serviced.

There are a lot of campsites located on farms next to churches so we were relieved that Google navigated us without incident to Church Farm on the Isle of Purbeck. Located in a farmers field in the village of Church Knowle, this site is a Certified Site in the Camping and Caravanning club network. It’s off-grid, very peaceful and absent of light pollution at night. The facilities are basic – a couple of loos and a shower and we think the price is around £15 per night. We aren’t really sure because after two days here, we haven’t seen anyone from the farm yet!

Once we had pitched up, we headed to the New Inn, a short walk from the campsite. There were references that it is now a community pub but we didn’t get that vibe whilst we were there. It’s a stunning building, in keeping with the overall feel of Church Knowle being an affluent rural community in a lovely part of Dorset.

Food was excellent with plenty of choice and there’s a decent selection of fish dishes. Although between us we weren’t very adventurous with Moe choosing Scampi and Joe enjoying the duck salad starter.

Today we headed into Poole and the reason for our visit, was the annual service of our campervan at Breeze VW Commercial. After a number of awful experiences with other VW main dealers, Breeze continue to provide a great service. Whilst it was a struggle last year to even determine if Yeoman’s in Exeter had actually performed an oil change, there was a detailed video from Breeze showing the work carried out.

In the afternoon we stopped off at “Blue Pool” where we lunched at the cafe and wandered around the gardens and pool. The pool / lake was an old 19th century quarry excavation that filled naturally with water.

The claim to fame for Blue Pool is that is hosts the longest rope bridge in the UK. Moe adds that it’s very bouncy… hmm.