Base Camp Journal - Hunter's Moon
What a drama our journey to Hunter’s Moon CMC site was! We collected Bertha from the depot an hour later than usual, got caught in a tailback on the M48 for a couple of hours - in very bad weather - and discovered it wasn’t such a good idea to follow the M5 through Taunton because that took an hour longer than going through the A-roads. We were knackered by the time we arrived, four and a half hours after leaving the depot, but we got there just before the reception closed, and had Bertha set up within 20 minutes.
The Hunter’s Moon Caravan and Motorhome Club site is just four kilometres outside Wareham. It could be said it’s deep into the Dorset countryside. There’s nothing that’s easily accessible on foot. The Silent Woman Woman, roughly 500 metres down the road, is closed, at the time of writing.
We’d very likely return there during summer, though, because Robby likes Bournemouth a lot. Hunter’s Moon is a good base from which to explore that part of Dorset and the Jurassic Coast, and the facilities are really clean. All the pitches are quite large and almost perfectly level, which is rare. It would be an ideal site for sitting outside when it’s warm and dry, with a barbeque and some gin, admiring the night sky that’s relatively unobscured by light pollution.
Last week, though, the weather was frequently quite bad. A few times I was woken in the early hours by the lightning and the sound of torrential rain hammering down on Bertha. It was intense. Was the Swift Base Camp designed and tested for these conditions, I wondered? Would Bertha, made almost entirely of that composite material, act as a Faraday Cage if she, or the tree next to us, was struck by lightning? Surprisingly, Bertha remained undamaged, and the grounds weren’t even waterlogged in the morning.
Wareham
About four kilometres south of the site is Wareham. There we found a Co-Op, an off-licence, a Chinese takeaway and a lively pub called The Duke of Wellington, and not much else. I’m not sure what the history of Wareham is, but the Duke of Wellington exhibited numerous ancient fishing rods and pictures of large boats moored at the quay. It seemed quite active ~200 years ago.
The quay was dead quiet when we visited - just a couple of drinking establishments and a boat house where I believe it’s possible to rent a motor boat during the summer for a trip along the river. The Quay Inn is more a gentrified restaurant selling relatively pricey food.
Bournemouth
Robby and I wandered here, there and everywhere in Bournemouth, and it was very busy, even this time of year. Bournemouth is a little like Brighton, but a lit less congested, with its high streets and chain stores. The gardens between the high streets and the beach are very pretty.
And it wasn’t uncomfortably cold as we walked along the pier. The sea is shallow for quite a distance from the sand, and a large group of surfers were making the most of the strong waves and relatively mild temperature.
Some guy stopped us in the high street to ask if I was a drag queen or dressing up for something - an odd thing to ask a complete stranger. Robby got a little upset about it. I honestly thought it was a gen question, and given more time, I would have told him that a cornucopia of things to be discovered outside the casualwear section of TK Maxx.
Corfe Castle
Our plan was to have Sunday lunch at the Sandford, which was nice enough - they grill the vegetables - then spend an hour or so at Corfe Castle.
Corfe Castle itself is mainly ruins on the summit of a hill, with a very old village at the base. It’s a bit like a nicer version of Dunster, but there are far more tourists milling about and a constant stream of traffic passing through. The buildings there date from around 1730, if the sign outside The Grayhound is anything to go by.
The main attraction in the area is the very pretty garden, with a model village and a few other interesting areas. A thunderstorm approached as we were in the garden, and we made it to the Bankes Arms seconds before the torrential downpour.
Bankes Arms is very nice, and surprisingly cosy for such an old a building, with its stone/iron windows. The interior is dark, but not cold and depressing.
Poole
The next day we returned to Poole, a large town with many high street stores next to a working harbour where transporters carry things to and from France, and where the luxurious Sunseeker yachts are sold. There is also a boat that takes tourists around the nearby island, which I think is a nature reserve.