Steam trains, a castle and the sea: a dog-friendly weekend in Dorset

We had two nights in Dorset with the Fabulous Five, which in practice meant one full day to play with, plus a leisurely arrival and a stop-off on the way home. So we did what we always do with a short trip: we tried to pack in as much as possible. A word before we start though. Every single place in this report could happily fill half a day or more, some of them a whole day. We were darting between them to make the most of a two-night stay, but do not let our gallop fool you. Any one of these is worth lingering over.

Here is how the weekend unfolded.

Where we stayed: Huntick Retreat Campsite

Our base was Huntick Retreat, a peaceful, adult-only site in the Dorset countryside near Lytchett Matravers, an easy hop from Poole and the Purbeck coast. It is genuinely dog-friendly, with up to four dogs allowed on a booking and no charge for them, which is exactly what a household like ours needs.

We arrived to a friendly welcome and were shown straight to our pitch, number three. It was about half past three and the pitch was in full sun, and warm with it, so the first job was the ladies: shade rigged up over their metal pen and cooling coats on while we wrestled the tent into place. The pitch was generous, a good ten metres wide, with an electric hook-up. The site was busy, most pitches taken, and yet it was wonderfully peaceful.

There is no shop on site, but you can make a hot drink in reception for £1, and there is a little games room too. The bathrooms were spotless and well looked after: separate ladies’ and men’s, plus a unisex room with a loo, shower and basin and space to change all in one. The ladies’ bathroom had three loos, three showers and two basins, so no queuing. Once we were set up we sat with a drink and simply soaked up the quiet. The site asks for silence between 11pm and 7am, and it really is that restful.

Our one big day: Purbeck by steam train

After a leisurely breakfast cooked on the camping stove, and the ladies fed, we set off for the day.

We drove to Norden to pick up the Swanage Railway, the heritage steam line that runs down through Corfe Castle to Swanage. A tip: the roads can be slow in places, so allow plenty of time. We parked at Norden (£4.20 for the day), bought our tickets and caught the 10.30 steam train. The station is lovely, all in keeping with the golden age of steam. We took the all-day hop-on, hop-off tickets at £27.50 each, and the ladies had their very own tickets, free of charge and made out to “one good dog” apiece. A small thing that made us grin.

Corfe Castle

First stop, just five minutes up the line with the castle rising into view from the carriage, was Corfe Castle. The station here is a picture, full of flowers, and it is home to a free steam railway museum which is well worth your time (we saved it for the journey back). It tells the story of the line’s origins and then its heyday, when the British seaside holiday was in full swing. Dogs are welcome on leads.

We walked into the village and over to the castle, a National Trust property. We started with tea in the tea-room, sitting out in a very pretty courtyard, though a word of warning: anyone eating was being thoroughly pestered by wasps. Tickets were £14 each for the two of us, with dogs free, and then we climbed the hill to explore the ruins. There were outdoor games set out for children at the foot of the castle. Corfe has stood as a romantic ruin since the Civil War, when it was slighted, and there is plenty of information dotted around about its long history. The views from the top are simply stunning. We had a quick wander around the town afterwards before hopping back on the train at about 12.50, this time a diesel service, as steam and diesel alternate through the day.

Swanage and Durlston

We rolled into Swanage and set off on a gorgeous country walk up to Durlston Country Park, roughly a mile and a half and all uphill (there is a more direct route of about 1.2 miles). I never tire of that first thrill of seeing the sea. Durlston is a glorious 320-acre clifftop park and nature reserve, with the great Portland stone globe, a lighthouse and old sea caves, and views that run for miles.

We made for Durlston Castle and the restaurant inside it, Seventh Wave. We arrived around 2pm to a busy room but found a table outside with space for the ladies’ pop-up pen. It was a warm day, and the travel water bottle and bowl had been a blessing on the walk over (I had the cooling coats in my bag just in case, but we did not need them). Lunch was excellent: a toasted panini for me and a lovely salad of stone fruits and mozzarella for Ros, with very generous sides of fries, of which the ladies may have received the odd chip. We wandered a while, drinking in the views, then headed back down into Swanage.

Swanage Pier

Down on the seafront we finished with a stroll along Swanage Pier, a beautifully restored Victorian pier. There is a small strolling fee for humans, and dogs are welcome, free of charge. We ambled out over the water in the sea breeze. Each board carries a little plaque marking an occasion or remembering a loved one, which we found unexpectedly touching. There were several people fishing, and although we ran out of time, you can take dog-friendly boat trips from the pier, and there is diving and other watersports too. We found a spot for a cup of tea by the sea before catching the steam train back to Norden and driving back to the campsite. A full and happy day.

Homeward, through the New Forest to Burley

The next morning we had breakfast and started to pack down. The heavens duly opened for about twenty minutes at half past nine, which was not ideal in the middle of taking a tent apart, but it passed quickly and we were off the site just after 11.

Rather than drive straight home, we broke the journey at Burley in the New Forest. Burley is a village steeped in a bit of everything: Bronze Age burial mounds and an Iron Age hillfort at nearby Castle Hill, a smuggling past, and, most famously, a reputation for witchcraft ever since the white witch Sybil Leek lived here in the 1950s and walked the lanes in a long cloak with a pet jackdaw on her shoulder. That heritage lives on in the village’s wonderfully quirky shops, with names like The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Cobwebs and Crystals, and there is even an old local legend of a dragon that once lodged in Burley Beacon.

We parked in the Forestry England car park just outside the village and walked the ladies through the open forest first, then dropped down into Burley itself, a stroll of only about five minutes. New Forest ponies wander freely here, and it is worth knowing that since 2023 it is an offence to touch or feed them, so we admired them from a respectful distance and kept the ladies close.

Lunch was at The Queen’s Head, a historic pub that began life as a blacksmith’s forge back in 1685. We found a table outside and both had the soup, which was very good, with the ladies tucked up in their pop-up. A last wander round the village, and then home.

The kit that earned its place

On a warm weekend with a lot of moving about, a few things pulled their weight: the cooling coats and the metal pen for making instant shade, the Pawfit trackers for peace of mind somewhere new, the pop-up pens that let the ladies settle calmly under a pub or restaurant table, and the travel water bottle and bowl, which were worth their weight in gold on the uphill walk to Durlston. You can find all of our tried-and-tested favourites in the Dog Travel Kit.

Would we go back?

In a heartbeat. We crammed a castle, two steam-train rides, a clifftop nature reserve, a Victorian pier and a New Forest village into barely a day and a half, and every one of them deserved longer. If you have more time than we did, slow right down and pick two or three to savour. We are already plotting our return, and there is more Dorset to come very soon.