Tag: brownsea island

Camping on Brownsea Island

Camping on Brownsea Island

Eric James Loh

We have been to Brownsea many times day trips. It’s an amazing place, but the amout of time there is limited by the times of the boats.

You can not miss the last 5pm boat!

This time, we were going to be spending 4 days and 3 nights on the island! We’d get the chance to see and do things we had never gotten round to before, like spend lots of time in the Dorset Wildlife Trust wetlands and explore the extreme western end of the island, near the old Pottery Pier.

We camped at the same site where Robert Baden Powell held his first expermimental camp there in 1907 and there were scout groups visiting there at the same time as us.

The Milky Way above the campsite

I took advantage of the low light pollution and cleat skies on one night to have a stab at taking some photos of the Milky Way, something I had never attempted before. I had some success and can’t wait to have another go some time.

Spoonbills
Redshanks
Cormarants

There are a number of hides and a visitor centre (with a new observatory in the process of being built) in the Dorset Wildlife Trust section of Brownsea Island. They’re free to visit, but you can make a donation (cash or contactless) if you wish to help the cause, and you really should because they are fantastic. We spent time in each hide, but with a 3 year old and a 5 year old who do not like staying quiet, we moved on to avoid disturbing too many people. There were lots of spoonbills on site that day, along with avocets, terns and a whole host of coastal and wading birds.

Brownsea is rather famous for its red squirrel population and quite rightly so, with approximately 250 living on the island. We saw the squirrels often whilst walking round the island, but the eaisest place to sport them is behind the church, it seems people leave nuts out for them, which I’m not sure of the ethics of.

Brownsea is also home to a small population of Sika deer. They are really habitualised to people and they seem to have no fight or flight instincts! We stayed and watched them for about 30 mins and even joggers and mini 4-wheel-drive vehicles did not scare them off.

Brownsea Island & Jurassic Coast – red squirrels, seabirds and peregrine falcons

Brownsea Island & Jurassic Coast – red squirrels, seabirds and peregrine falcons

Eric James Loh

So, last Friday evening, we took the train down to Poole for the weekend. We arrived at around 9.30pm and made the short walk to our accomodation. We were staying at the RNLI college and to be honest, we were not sure what to expect. Would it be like university dorms? We were wrong to worry, it was really nice en-suite accomodation with a view over Poole Quay. There was a nice restaurant and a bar and balcony also looking out over the quay. We’d definitely stay again.

The next morning, after a good buffet breakfast (they even had veggie sausage), we walked a short 10 minutes to the harbour to catch the ferry to Brownsea Island. There are a couple of companies that run the ferry, but we got our tickets with Brownsea Island Ferries. The trip is only 20 mins, with commentary along the way of various sites around the harbour (although the trip back takes 40 mins, going round the other side of the island and round the rest of the islands in the harbour).

Go to Brownsea Island, go now! It’s beautiful with shady woods, wild beaches and is also home to a nature reserve managed by the Dorset Wildlife Trust. It’s owned by the National Trust, so if you’re a member its free to enter, otherwise you’ll be asked to pay £8 on arrival. We looked round the ubiquitous National Trust shop and then bought some drinks and snacks to take with us as we explored the island .We made our way to the south shore path, past the church and the visitor centre (with peacocks and chickens strolling around outside).

We soon found a lovely wild beach on the shore of what is known as White Ground Lake. We laid out a blanket, had our lunch and watched the oystercatchers picking in the mud and pebbles for food. After this short rest, we resumed our walk back in to the interior of the island, passing through the campsite first used by Baden-Powell when he set up the scout movement and still used by scout groups from all over world to this day.

After about half an hour walking we came across some red squirrels, which is what we were really looking for today. We stayed and watched them for a few minutes, until they finally climbed up in to the trees and out of view. We only had a short time before the last ferry was to leave, so quickly entered the DWT reserve (suggested donation £2) and visited a couple of the hides to see what we could see, which was mostly black-headed gulls with a few oystercatchers in the mix.

After the ferry back to the harbour (again with interesting commentary, we headed straight out on another boat trip, again with Brownsea Island Ferries, but this time on one of their Puffin Cruises, which they only run a handful of times during the year. Puffins, this far south? We’d seen puffins in Skomer and the Farne Islands, but I was a little skeptical that we’d see any. the boat had some experts on board from the Birds of Poole Harbour charity, who provided insight to what to look for and knowledge of their behaviour. The boat took us out past Studland Beach, the Old Harry Rock, past Swannage and to and area known as Dancing Ledge. As we motored along we saw numerous guillemots, dotted with the odd razorbill, gulls and terns, including sandwich terns.

Sure enough, soon found some puffins both in the water and on the ledge, around 4 in total (there are apparently 4 breeding pairs in the area). No, it’s not the thousands that you see in the Farne Islands, but these are just 2 and a half hours from London!

To add to the excitement, we also saw a family of peregrine falcons, the first time I had seen the fabulous birds. We saw a mother and 3 or so juveniles being fed on the ledge. Amazing.

We headed back to Poole, having dinner at the Banana Wharf restaurant before heading to bed for a decent nights sleep.