Tales from the driving seat

Club member Phil Aldridge travels from Kent to East Sussex with his family over the Easter break in his regular blog series

Welcome back to my blog. 

I have been a member of the Caravan and Motorhome Club for nine years and in 2019 I became a Nominated Member on Club Council, hoping to represent other members who are campervan owners. 

Just before the Easter weekend, we took a trip down to East Sussex from our home in Kent. This is our first trip of the year in our VW T2 Bay Campervan ‘Bluebell’ and a good opportunity to make sure everything is working on the van and to get essential cupboard items restocked. 

On pitch – the site is surrounded by beautiful woodland

We stayed at the wonderful Fairlight Woods Club Campsite, located in the Village of Pett, near to Winchelsea and about ten minutes from Hastings seafront. Access to the site is via a single track road, so make sure you depart and arrive as directed in your booking confirmation. 

There are two great pubs close to the site; The Royal Oak and The Two Sawyers, which you can walk to via a footpath directly from inside the site. Just down the road towards Hastings in Ore, there are several small supermarkets and food outlets, with parking on the roof of the Co-Op. 

There is an excellent tea room / café in Fairlight itself, called Coastguard Café, serving a variety of food and drinks from sandwiches and soups, to cooked breakfast. We also found an excellent stop-off point on the beach at Winchelsea Beach, called Winchelsea Beach Café. I can highly recommend their breakfast bap, which is also available to take away. 

Rye Harbour Nature Reserve

If you enjoy walking as a hobby, there are walking routes and footpaths a-plenty straight from the site, some of which are cycle-friendly too, but be prepared for some hills! There is also a nature reserve at Winchelsea Beach, which is relatively flat and allows you to walk or cycle (or run!) all the way to the entrance of Rye Harbour. 

If you are a dog owner, the site is well equipped. It does not have a dedicated dog walk, but there is a large wooded area directly opposite the site and there is a private dog-designated area further up the lane from the site called ‘Poppy’s Paddock'. This is available to prebook with the owner at £10 per hour and it enables you to let your dogs off the lead and have a good run around safely. We will definitely be using that again. 

Poppy’s Paddock info

Hastings itself has a lot to offer and cater to all sorts of interests. Be sure to get yourself some traditional fish and chips (surely that has to be done?) and maybe try some fresh seafood from one of the huts at the harbour end of the seafront. 

Until next month,

Phil