Site Spotlight – New Forest

Site Spotlight New Forest

It has been an age since I was able to share with you a real life GlamperRV adventure but yay, we finally did it last week and wow, it felt great to get away!

We headed down to Corfe Castle on day one and stayed over at Norden Farm Campsite.  A really fantastic location for exploring the castle which is just a 20 minute walk away, as well as the surrounding countryside which was simply glorious in the spring sunshine.  There is so much to do within walking/biking distance of this campsite and if we had longer we could easily have spent a few days here as we didn’t even make it to Studland Bay!  Norden Farm is a working farm so expect to see the cows being taken off for milking, peacocks roaming and at this time of year lambs being fed.  It also has an incredibly well stocked farm shop which is handy if you need to stock up on supplies.  The campsite itself is made up of many different fields and given a choice I would probably opt for either a sunny corner spot in the Donkey Field or one close to the bridleway in the Pond Field.

From Corfe we headed back up to the New Forest which was really the main focus of this trip, the garage full of bikes for exploring all the off road trails.  Our first night was in Burley where we stayed at a Brit Stops location.  Now this was a real find and one I highly recommend if campsites are not your thing.  This cider farm on the edge of the village (well within walking distance of the pubs!) has a field especially for Brit Stops members where they only allow 2 campers at any one time so there is plenty of space but do book ahead.  The New Forest wild ponies roam into the main car park here so don’t be surprised to come across them on arrival.  There is a bike hire shop in Burley if you haven’t brought your own and a plethora of tracks to explore.  It really was sensational cycling off road, frequently coming across wild ponies and cows who were well accustomed to the tourists on two wheels!

Next stop was only a few miles east near the village of Brockenhurst.  Here we stayed at Roundhill Camping, a Camping in the Forest location and it most definitely did not disappoint.  The campsite is nestled in the heart of the New Forest providing a wide range of paths to explore directly from the site.  It was so peaceful and we found ourselves a ‘pitch’ or should I say patch of grass next to the giant pine trees well away from the main areas (there are no set pitches here – it is pretty wild just like the ponies!).  Facilities here are rather basic but to be honest in a GlamperRV all you really need is water and waste facilities which they have so this did not present any problems.  In normal times you could easily pop into one of the restaurants at The Pig New Forest which is just a mile up the road!  I think this could be a good spot for Summer 2021 as they are only opening to guests with onboard facilities (ie. no tents) which means numbers will be a fraction of those in normal summers.

With the New Forest so close to home it is not somewhere we had ever explored previously however it is a real gem and whilst we don’t like to return to places it is high on our list for the next trip! We hope our Site Spotlight New Forest also inspires you to explore this region.