Swanage

One of the ladies I work with in the charity shop is very active in her church organising social activites and days out. When she mentioned that one of the coach trips was to Swanage I asked if I could book some seats. I've never visited this seaside town before and as it's not linked up to National Rail it's not somewhere we are likely to get to on a day out.
So bright and early Saturday morning me, my mum, T and S set off with 40 odd other people to spend a day at the seaside.

Our drop off point was just opposite the Swanage Steam Railway. If we were going to be in this part of Dorset for a short break we would definitely have been having been taking a ride on this.


Our first stop was to get a cuppa and we found a little place called Country Foods Kitchen (blogger won't let me do a link). Would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting. Our toasted teacakes just hit the spot and mum said her coffee was delicious. And the staff were really helpful and friendly too.

After being refuelled we were on a mission to buy a bucket and spade and a ball to take to the beach. These we found quite quickly in between stopping to watch the 11th Signals Regiment exercise their freedom of Swanage by marching through the town centre.


We gasped in awe at seeing a real live dalek through a shop window and dashed in to have a closer look. The very kind gentleman inside was more than happy for us to take photos. This made T's day!

Whilst my mum went into another shop I crossed the road to snap this balcony above a deli. Love the faces on the terracotta pots. It all looks so colourful.

Of course being Sawnage the pub in the town centre had to be The White Swan.

My sister had visited Swanage a few months ago and told us about a shop we just had to go into called. Curiosity. Well I could have spent all day in there. So much to look at, it was a bit over whelming! Candles, hearts, jewellery, badges, purses, crockery, photo frames, trinkets, glass ware, the list goes on and on. And the biggest selection of door knobs I've ever seen, these are only part of it.

The children were so good waiting for us to make our selection from the goodies on display we headed straight to the beach to find the right spot to enjoy our lunch.

As you can tell from the photos it wasn't the sunniest of days but this didn't put us off.

The children went in the water, played catch and made sandcastles.

And enjoyed an ice cream, as modelled by a very sandy Miss S here.

Here's mum trying out one of the deckchairs just before we started to pack up and head back to the coach.

Instead of going back the way we had come we decided to go in the opposite direction as I was sure it would lead us back up the hill to our pick up point.

As we strolled along we spotted so many places we hadn't had the time to investigate.

Giant bears.

Beautiful buildings.

More seaside shops.

Shops selling wicker baskets, always a favourite!

Shops selling lovely items for the home and garden.

The pretty floral entrance to the Salvation Army hall.

As we got to the top of this hill it became apparent that my theory was wrong, but luckily there was a couple out walking their dog who told us if we took the short cut we had just walked past we would be right back on track. Thankfully we made it back to the coach on time and we weren't the last ones!