Dorset 2 - Corfe Castle and the LPG story

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Our third day in the motorhome started early - the birds were singing and yenut again the weather was cold and miserable. However hooked up we were reasonably snug in the van . Simon arrived at 8.15 and we left Suzy for the rest of her work to be done. We had got to the point where we had had enough and wanted to move on. We had the Citroen again and drove to Corfe Castle a pretty little town in the heart of Dorset. Again another place I had visited in the summer of 1976.

The village is constructed almost completely from the local grey Purbeck limestone which gives it a grey appearance even in the sun. It comprises two main streets, East Street and West Street, linked at their north end at the Square. Around the square, with its cross commemorating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee of 1897, are clustered the small collection of shops, the post office, church and pubs. I would have loved to have visited the steam train but yet again it was out of season and closed.

The castle which is national trust and overlooking the town is pretty impressive. We parked up in the free one hour car parking in the square and headed for the local pub for yet another Full English breakfast. This time the usual but with the addition of hash browns. It was just nice to sit and watch the visitors staying at the pub having breakfast and noticed that there was free Wfi too which is an added bonus.

After breakfast we parked in the national trust car park and walked up to the castle. The walk to the castle is pretty and runs alongside the tiny river. The banks alive with squirrels and an abundance of birdlife . We thought it looked the sort of place where there might be otters and also kingfishers. The castle may have been a defensive site even in Roman times and Corfe Castle certainly has had a colourful history. By the 11th century it had been rebuilt in stone. It has a solid powerful, oppressive feel to it. It was much destroyed by the parliamentarians and some of the towers lean precariously. The style of it is nothing like those in Wales and it has a very different feel to it. . We struggled to take any decent photographs due to the mist that seemed to be clinging to the area and low into the valley.. Our walk back took us down the hillside where we passed herds of white and black short legged Soar sheep who were happily grazing the hillsides.

The rest of the day was spent in Weymouth – again spoilt rather by the bad weather. Even wrapped up in coat, scarf and thick gloves the Arctic winds bit through and spoilt the enjoyment of being on holiday. We took to walking quickly along the seafront in the vain hope that we would stop feeling the cold. We only took a cursory glance at the Georgian and Victorian rows of hotelswhich in their heyday must have been impressive, the commemoration clock for Victorias Jubilee (not as ornate as the Eastgate Clock in Chester) and the magnificent statue celebrating something or other from the reign of George III . He looked robust and resplendent with gilded unicorn and lion. We found a lovely little cafe which served a large mug of warming welcoming tea and a glass of coke for £2.10 How they make a profit from those prices I shall never know.

Upon return to our motorhome the work was complete. We were shown the solar panel which fitted perfectly on the roof together with its controls, the gaslow bottles and connections and the new remote controlled satellite dish. The solar panel has an all singing all dancing connection to our first and second leisure batteries and will enable us to wild camp and take advantage of that free resource the sun. Even on the dullest of days we still managed to charge up 4.7 amps of power which seemed mighty impressive .....but then as Glenn says “What do we know?”. The control panel though had been screwed to the wall and one of the screws had damaged the side wall of the van. Why is it that when one thing goes wrong then others follow as surely as the day follows the night? We seem to be plagued by bad luck and it continued. We now have to take the van back to the alarm fitter for another sensor to be fitted and to a body repairer to see if they can knock out the small dent. The satellite dish seemed to work and when you can figure out the instructions it locates the signal automatically, turning and whirring like a whirling dervish. I kept thinking of Jodrell Bank with its radio receiver and expected messages to come in from aliens deep in space. How my imagination wanders sometimes!!!

We fitted two gaslow bottles and the last thing left to do was to go to the nearest garage to fill them. We paid up and were again much lighter now in the pocket. We set the GPS co-ordinates given to us by Simon for the nearest garage. Wrong co-ordinates and we ended up in rush hour Poole at the wrong garage. This one did not sell LPG, another co-ordinate obtained and off we headed again. Mmmmm can anything else go wrong ? Well yes, you start to wonder what you are doing wrong when the nozzle for the LPG won’t fit the hole. After much discussion with the attendant it turned out that we had the wrong size screws fitted and these being too long were preventing the nozzle fitting. Off we went back to Simon to refit the right size. Will it fill tomorrow – well the adventure continues - who knows?

We spent the night at Ulwell Camping deep down the lanes of rural Dorset. There were three spots left when we arrived and we picked the flattest we could find not wanting to have to try out levelling blocks. The campsite was busy even out of season and this surprised me greatly. There was a swimming pool on site which I didnt use, a reception area , lovely clean toilets and shower block. We ate that night in the Village Inn which is attached to the complex. A wood burner cheerily roared in the corner but to our disappointment the pub was totally empty. Perhaps this was due to the high price of the meals. We ordered the special a beef in red wine sauce with vegetables and whilst it was tasty it did seem overpriced. On the whole I would recommend the site due to its handy location for Corfe and Swanage and its excellent facilities. We planned one night here before moving on to Warwick and its castle.

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Photos

Corfe Castle
The village

Corfe Castle
The Soar sheep