A few weeks ago, on a rainy Friday afternoon, we packed our things and headed down to Cornwall for a weekend at the Forest Holidays site at Deerpark (near Liskeard).
The journey down was slightly stressful (as it pretty much always is when you travel down to Cornwall) – full of extensive traffic jams, torrential rain and tiny, windy roads seemingly leading to nowhere (thanks Mr Sat Nav). So when we arrived and were given the keys to our ‘treehouse’ abode, we were very ready to settle in for a weekend of exploring and relaxing.
When we arrived at the site we were pretty excited to find that the little shop and reception also housed a pizza oven, takeaway, bar and farm shop – what more could you want from a weekend away? The site is also set deep in the forest, surrounded on all sides by thick woodland. Most of the cabins overlook the huge millpond on site, which is a pretty amazing view. Our cabin was a ‘Silver Birch cabin’, but nestled up in the trees and surrounded from every angle by greenery, it did feel a little like staying in a treehouse. We also paid an extra £30 to bring little Bodhi dog along, who thoroughly enjoyed his little forest retreat!
Of course one of the major attractions of this cabin was the outdoor hot tub – what could be more perfect than lying under the trees in the sunshine, glass of fizz in hand, enjoying the sound of the birds and the wind through the forest (answer: nothing, literally, nothing). We hopped into the hot tub pretty much as soon as we got there, even though it was cold and dark outside, looking up at the stars and watching the steam rising up out of the tub was the best way to ease away the traffic woes! The cabin had a mezzanine, with a bedroom downstairs and a master bedroom with en-suite upstairs. I loved that the main bedroom was nestled under the rafters of the roof, it felt like a little den when you cosied down at night (and listening to the rain on the roof of the cabin as you fell asleep was also pretty idyllic).
The next morning we headed off to explore Looe and Polperro, the two nearest coastal towns (as much as I love the forest, you can’t visit Cornwall and not visit its pretty seaside towns). We nosed around Looe first, watched the boats in the harbour, ate a pasty (of course), dodged the seagulls, let Bodhi have a good sniff around, and generally took in the sights.
We then went on to Polperro which is only a short drive away. We’ve visited Polperro before (back in 2011!) and actually have a big framed perspex print up in our lounge from last time we visited. It’s a lovely little town with another pretty harbour and lots of craft and gift shops (Looe seemed to have more restaurants and cafés, though we did find a great little pub in Polperro for cider and crab sandwiches).
We also went for a little walk up the coast patch and along the cliff top. Such amazing views, and it would have been a perfect day to be out on a little fishing boat!
After mooching around Polperro we headed back to the site for another dip in the hot tub and for a drink at the clubhouse (we also entered a pub quiz and came second… out of three teams).
On the Sunday we went for a really long bike ride in the forest (we took our bikes with us but you can also hire them there). It was very muddy but lots of fun, and obviously Bodhi had a whale of a time running alongside us and frolicking in the streams. I didn’t take my SLR with me and I think there’s probably enough photos in this post, so you’ll just have to imagine two muddy bikes, two muddy people and a very muddy dog!
It’s fair to say that we didn’t want to leave our little treehouse on the Sunday afternoon – I was tempted to try and claim squatters’ rights and make them forcibly eject us! Could you really blame us – this is the view from the lounge…
… and did I mention you can order pizzas from your TV?
Instead we sulked off back to Dorset, with pasty-filled bellies and dreams of moving somewhere you can see the trees from every window. One day….
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