Newlands Holiday Park

Charmouth is the gateway to the Jurassic Coast and has some of the best fossils to be found in Dorset: the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre has fossil collections, guided fossil walks and is where you can proudly bring in your very own fossil find to be identified.

The beach is a 15-minute walk from Newlands: stroll from here to Lyme Regis keeping your head down for fossily finds, then wander around Lyme to take a look at Cobb Harbour, made famous in Jane Austen’s Persuasion; buy freshly ground flour at the fourteenth century watermill; amble along to at the ammonites, exhibitions and events at the museum, or swing off on the cliff at Lyme Regis Golf Club.

Once you’ve found your fossils, there are heaps of other historical highlights in the area: Exeter is only half an hour’s drive away for the eleventh century cathedral and peering at Parliament Street, one of the narrowest streets in the world.

Pick your own fruit and play giant snakes and ladders at the Grade I listed Forde Abbey and Gardens, or walk along the ancient River Exe just outside Exeter with a stop off at fishing town Topsham.

Mini fossil hunters will love the award-winning Dinosaur Museum at Dorchester where they can take a detour to the Teddy Bear Museum; while if they’re watery types they’ll have a whale of a time at the Splashdown Water Park in Poole and the walk-through underwater tunnel at the Bournemouth Oceanarium.

Closer to Newland and Dino Dan, families can see zebras and meerkats at the Axe Valley Wildlife Park, trundle along on the Seaton Tramway for a scenic trip through the estuary of the River Axe, or feed a shoal of mullet (not the haircut) at Lyme Regis Marine Aquarium.