Swanage & Cruise Ships — Andy & Kirstie

A quick break before lockdown II - November 2020

We’ve been visiting Swanage in Dorset for years. It’s a lovely, traditional seaside town, once a popular holiday destination with the Victorians and continues to be a regular summer getaway for families today.

We avoid the summer though. We have always visited in the first week of November, as Andy’s birthday is on the 5th (remember, remember the 5th of November). It’s MUCH quieter. We always stay in the same place, The Purbeck house hotel, which is a two minute walk to the town shops and seafront, but is far enough away that you’re not right in the middle of everything. It’s a great little hotel in what once was a very grand private house. You can still see little reminders of it’s past life, such as the line of bells in what would have been the servants quarters, which would have been sounded by residents in various rooms around the house.

Our last visit was in 2017. We’ve been busy travelling elsewhere for a few years and Swanage was sacrificed for more exotic destinations! We made our plans and booked our room and we were really looking forward to it, having not had a break all year (due to Covid-19) other than our night away in Warwick Castle.

Then the dreaded lockdown part II struck at the last minute. This time not a full lockdown, but one that affected all non-essential businesses, including hotels. We were originally arriving on the Tuesday and departing Friday, but lockdown II was from Midnight Thursday, so we’d be ‘kicked-out’ of the hotel Wednesday morning. We nearly cancelled the whole thing, as it just didn’t seem worth the effort for just one night.

With a bit of juggling we managed to travel down to Swanage a day earlier than planned, arriving late in the afternoon on the Monday, which allowed us two nights away and one full day, which was enough to make it worth while. We settled ourselves into our room and then went for a wander around the town. Social distancing protocols were in full effect, with reduced numbers of tables in coffee shops and our favourite local cafe/restaurant Beavers, was already closed due to the impending lockdown. Gutted! At least our go-to restaurant for our first night dinner was still operating normally - Wimpy. We had a great burger and fries in Wimpy as usual and made our way back to the hotel where we had a lovely nights sleep.

The following morning we were up at 7am and down to breakfast by 8am. Breakfast is served in the conservatory, connected to the main house (there is an annexe with lots of bedrooms at the bottom of the garden). There was hardly anyone else there, which is pretty normal during our visits to be honest, however the waitress told us that when they had re-opened in the summer after the first lockdown there were 68 people for breakfast one morning. Yuck!

After breakfast we organised ourselves and by 9’ish we were walking down to the sea front and then on up to Peveril Point in the hope of seeing some cruise ships anchored off of the Dorset coast. Peveril point is a promontory at the southern end of Swanage bay with views out toward The Isle of Wight. It’s only a ten minute walk from the town itself. As we approached, the first of the cruise ships on the Horizon came into view. I set-up my tripod on the cliff edge and used my Sony RX10 IV to zoom-in as far as I could, when we discovered we were looking at Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas. We soon realised that in fact all four of the ships in sight were Royal Caribbean vessels.

After a bit of filming we made our way on up the cliff toward Durlston country park and Durlston castle. Durlston castle is not actually a castle and never has been. It’s actually a folly, with a restaurant, visitors centre, gift shop and some amazing views. We had coffee and then walked down onto the coast path, passing the Great Globe, one of the largest stone spheres in the world, weighing around 40 tonnes and is 10ft in diameter. The globe was constructed in Greenwich in 1887.

We walked the coast path for a short time, until the Durlston lighthouse came into view and then did a U-turn and walked back toward Swanage town. By the time we arrived back into the town centre it was the middle of the afternoon. Perfect timing for a cream tea! We were able to find a nice table in the Brook tea rooms, a small café on the sea front and had a very nice cream tea. It was, of course, eaten the Cornish way, with the jam first followed by lashings of Cornish clotted cream. We had another wander along the sea front and shops and then bought ourselves a little ‘bed picnic’ and wine in a small supermarket for our dinner and had a relaxing evening spent in our very large superior room watching the great British bake-off on TV.

The following morning timings were the same as always, 7am up, 8am breakfast (our cruise ship routine for the MDR). We packed up our room and loaded some of it into the car. This was about 9am and check-out was 11am, so we had a wander into the town for a bit, before returning, emptying our room and checking-out of the hotel. The hotel very kindly allowed us to keep our car in the car park for the remainder of our time in Swanage.

At this point we walked back up to Peveril point as we now had glorious sunshine and clear blue skies, so we thought we’d get some more shots of the cruise ships in the bay.

After a bit of shopping and a fish and chips lunch, we returned to the hotel, jumped in the car and began our three hour journey home to Northamptonshire.

So, we had a nice little break after all, squeezed in just hours before the second lockdown.

We definitely recommend The Purbeck House hotel and Swanage as a short break destination in the UK. Although if you want peace and quiet, you might want to avoid Summer!

Watch the vlog of our time in Swanage on YouTube HERE.