Dog friendly camping weekend in the South Downs National Park in West Sussex. Staying one night at the Camping and Caravan club site at Swindon village (a lovely quite, open site with friendly site manager Jon but with no toilet or shower facilities, more like a certified location site). after checking in on Saturday afternoon we did a 2hr round walk to Nore folly on the National trust Slindon Estate which is a large area of land with a mixture of pasture and woodland criss crossed with many footpaths and bridleways. On Sunday we had planned to stay a second night at another Camping and Caravan club site in Graffham, also in the South Downs, but it is a forest campsite and we found it very dingy and there were so many flies we didn't even want to get out of the van so we decided to explore Graffham then drive home for the night as we were only 1and a half hours away. We're glad we did as Graffham has a village store which sells pretty much everything including great coffee and cakes, so we stopped here for coffee and sunday papers before carrying on to a camper van friendly car park at Cocking Hill, just outside the village of Cocking. This gives direct access to the South Downs Way walking and mountain biking trail. We walked up to the top of cocking hill and back which gave great views and took about 11/2 hours but you can walk much further from here if you're feeling energetic. On the way to Cocking we passed a pub called the White Horse which looked like it had a really large car park at the front, ideal for motorhomes, so we decided to give it a try for lunch. What a great find ! Lovely dog friendly garden, delicious sunday lunch and even live music in the garden from 3pm. The staff were really friendly even though all the inside tables were booked, they were happy to accommodate us in the garden. Bit pricey at £17 for a main course roast beef but we felt it was worth it for good food and a great ambience. The manager also guided us to a lovely walk from the pub across the fields to Graffham village with neat, pictures cottage gardens and a quaint church.He was happy for us to leave the van in the car park. So quiet, loads to birds singing and the dogs loved the long hay field. All in all we had a great weekend away and it only cost us £14 for the campsite and all the walking was obviously FREE !! (did waste £28 by not staying at the Graffham campsite, maybe it would seem better on a bright sunny day, and it did have shower and toilet facilities, although we didn't stay long enough to check them out). Will definitely go back. Hope you like my video, I love camping with my dogs and exploring new areas. Please post any suggestions for dog friendly campsites with great walking, as would love to try out some new areas.
Mandy x