Freshwater Beach Holiday Park

Sun zealots, sea anglers, watersports worshippers, swimmers and havers of hikes and heritage have a mammoth amount of things to see and do nearby and in surrounding Dorset. Nearby West Bay, and Weymouth a little along the coast to the south-east, are well-known watersports havens for surfers, sailors and windsurfers more from their first-class beaches; afterwards, dry off at one of the towns’ well-known restaurants like West Bay’s Riverside Restaurant or Weymouth’s award-winning and family-friendly The Dining Room. The market town of Bridport is the closest town to Freshwater Beach Holiday Park and about a mile away: for its size, it’s an attractively arty draw for painters, actors and their ilk and includes a funded arts centre with year-round events, exhibitions and films. The centuries-old street market in town is also pretty colourful; go here on Wednesdays and Saturdays to buy fresh produce, clothes, plants, paintings, books and antiques. If you’re on the Jurassic Coast to fossil hunt – essential if you have children along – go on to Lyme Regis, home of the annual fossil festival and the award-winning Lyme Regis Museum. Book a fossil walk from here to get free entry to the fossil finds and exhibitions of the museum afterwards. Dorset has a mammoth amount of other stuff to do for kids too, including aquariums, petting farms, gardens and play centres and aquariums at Lyme Regis and the Sea Life at Weymouth. Non-Dorset dwellers live 12 miles from Bridport at the Axe Valley Wildlife Park (meerkats, lemurs and many more) and at Wareham’s award-winning Monkey World Ape Rescue Centre which has six daily talks and is open every day of the year apart from Christmas Day. Weymouth’s Abbotsbury Swannery, the only managed colony of nesting mute swans in the world, also has an acclaimed children’s farm with guinea pigs, ponies, undercover play area, tractor rides and lamb racing daily at midday.