A friend and I decided to take a last minute trip to the beach. We put various places in to google maps from Norfolk to Christchurch and after a little traffic decided on Christchurch.
Looking at google maps now Hemsby, where we were going, is saying 2 hours and 25 minutes away and Christchurch the same. The reality is that it took almost 3 hours but so worth it.
PARKING AND MUDEFORD QUAY
We parked at Mudeford Quay Car park, we paid £11 for parking for the entire day. At this car park you will find a great enclosed play park and a pub close by called Haven House inn. We had fish and chips from here and I had a diet coke. I paid £17 for one adults and one child's portion plus the drink.
Next to the pub you can catch a ferry to Mudeford but by the time we explored this area it was 5pm and the ferry had finished. The ferry is definitely worth doing though, this is cash only. Mudeford is stunning.
AVON BEACH
We walked to the left of the park and onto Avon beach. The beach was sandy with a lot of pebbles in places. When I've visited before I parked by The Noisy Lobster further up the beach. This section of beach is much nicer and more sandy. There's lots of beach huts, a restaurant, cafe, shop, toilets and fish and chip shop. There are also picnic benches on the beach.
Our food was nice from the pub but in future I would enjoy fish and chips from the actual fish and chippy.
I had the most delicious gluten free almond brownie from the take away cafe. I purchased two chocolate muffins, two brownies and two bottles of diet coke for £15, bit pricey! We did take a picnic which saved us buying lunch though, bare in mind we stayed for 8 hours.
After our day we finished at the park back at the car park. There was a huge wooden pirate ship with slide, sandy area, mini hand held zip wire and swings. It was a great park.
I'll link the map below where you can choose which car park you use. They are all really close to each other but may become full during peak times.
Postcode BH23 4AB