Glorious beaches, hot weather, outdoor swimming pools and good times – anybody would be forgiven for thinking we had flown to an exotic location for our summer holiday.
But no, we had gone no further than the wonderful New Forest.
We checked into Shorefield Country Park, an excellent holiday park on the edge of the Forest within walking distance of the beach at Milford-on-Sea.
The site itself, surrounded by countryside, has enough facilities to make any family holiday great, with both indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a popular clubhouse with daily entertainment, a welcoming bar and restaurant, shop, playgrounds, arcade and more.
Shorefield Holidays has been going since 1958 and the company has eight sites across the area. Shorefield Country Park is one of its biggest – and the original - started by Dr Robert Pollock who bought a small caravan park next to a worked-out gravel pit near Milford-on Sea because he couldn't find anywhere to pitch his holiday caravan and transformed it into the holiday park you see today.
Over the years it has picked up many awards – from the likes of TripAdvisor and the Beautiful South Tourism Awards, for providing high-quality accommodation in the form of hundreds of chalets, caravans, holiday lodges and camping pitches.
One of its latest additions has been the luxury lodges, which even come with hot tub on the terrace. These lodges are like proper apartments, with mod cons like wifi, and extras like a barbecue on the terrace, and linen and towels provided, plus they are set in a prime location on the site, within a short walk of all the facilities.
The hot tub was a brilliant perk – the kids loved it and so did we after they had gone to bed at night. What better way to unwind than with a drink in the hot tub under the clear New Forest skies looking at the stars?
Luckily for us the weather was on our side – and with dry hot days all week – it was hard not to go to a different beach each day.
Day one we spent the day on the pebbles at Milford on Sea – which has spectacular sea views towards Christchurch Harbour and the Isle of Wight – and day two we discovered possibly one of the best beaches in the country – Avon Beach.
I’m not sure why Avon Beach is not more famous, but it’s perfect for families, with golden sand, a stretching flat promenade, cute beach huts (which you can hire), nearby parking and great facilities at the Noisy Lobster. The Noisy Lobster caters for all beach goers – from posh evening lobster-eating sunset –watching restaurant goers, to the busy mums who want to grab a proper coffee and a freshly baked pastry, to the families queuing up for fish and chips from the hatch – it's all there. Toilet facilities and shop too.
The Noisy Lobster gets a big thumbs up and made it easy to spend a whole day at the beach, stretching right into the warm evening.
On another day, we explored the New Forest – heading to The New Forest Reptile Centre, near Lyndhurst, where we went lizard spotting and enjoyed a really beautiful and relaxing walk. It was just the right length – a circular one-mile flat route - for the whole family, and photo points along the way kept it interesting for the kids – who absolutely loved lying back on the forest bed and gazing up at the top of the trees.
Another day saw us take the New Forest Tour – an open top double decker bus which calls in at the holiday park from June until mid-September, and links to two other circular bus routes covering the New Forest.
For one price you can ride all day – the wind blowing in your hair as the bus whizzes across some of the most beautiful countryside spots in the UK.
From grazing ponies, to wild gorse land, to tiny villages that sell fudge and see traffic snarl ups as so many ponies are in the road, to the bigger seaside towns of Lymington and the New Forest Heritage Centre at Lyndhurst, there’s so much to see – and the Tour is an economical and fun way to do it. Plus there's something liberating about leaving the car behind when you’re on holiday.
We hopped off to eat our packed lunch at Exbury Gardens, a spectacular collection of landscaped woodland, herbaceous, contemporary and formal gardens, and took a ride on the steam railway – but there are many options with buses stopping all over the Forest and at its attractions frequently throughout the day.
The best bit about the whole holiday though – was knowing that whatever we did with our day, we’d be coming back to an excellent park.
We loved having a dip in the outdoor pool, which was packed with other families enjoying the British summer, and we loved the entertainment at the showbar. A nightly kids’ disco, with a show of giant squirrel characters and some great reps, and then Bingo Beats after - a fun twist of the holiday park staple, before some brilliant entertainers came on really made our holiday special. Magicians to Madonna tribute acts, the entertainment was excellent.
With its ideal location and high standards, Shorefield Country Park made the perfect base for our great British holiday.
Fact box - Shorefield Country Park
Signature Lodge with Hot Tub – 4 beds, sleeps 8
Visiting September 30 – October 4 – 4 nights
Was £1,337.45 now £936.21
For more go to shorefield.co.uk/
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