Alberta Holiday Park

Food! Apart from the seafood and other delicacies in Whitstable, foodies can wander along to the village of Seasalter for some top local nosh at The Sportsman pub, the first eatery in the area to win a Michelin star (Seasalter’s also the spot where you might catch a glimpse of Harry Hill or Janet Street-Porter, who both have holiday homes here). To land your own slippery catch, sea angling and fishing competitions are a stroll away at the seaside village of Herne Bay. This is also the launching pad to work up an appetite with some watersports : try Zapcat racing or jet skiing here, or stick to Whitstable for yachting, water skiing, surfing and sailing. The Whitstable Museum and Art Gallery covers the history of water-based heritage along this stretch of Kent coast – including the oyster trade, natch. For more munching, a little way inland from Alberta Holiday Park is Brogdale Farm, home of the National Fruit Collection and the biggest collection of fruit plants and trees in the world; there are regular festivals and tasting days as well as orchard tours and courses. Or combine a farm visit with rides, an animal village and more at the Hop Farm Family Park at Paddock’s Wood. The heritage city of Canterbury, where Chaucer’s pilgrims rested their weary feet, is five miles from Alberta and has England’s oldest cathedral as well as a city wall built in Roman times; there’s also the Marlowe Theatre, named after Elizabethan playwright Kit who was born in the city. History heads can also canter to the cathedral and castle in the historic Kent town of Rochester, visit (and take a balloon flight from) Edward I’s former favourite home Leeds Castle, or amble around one of the several National Trust sites in the county: Knole, near Sevenoaks, was the hunting ground of Henry VIII and the inspiration for Virginia Woolfe’s Elizabethan romance Orlando. Other day trips from Alberta include a gentle steam along the fourteen miles of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, biking along the Crab and Winkle Way between Whitstable and Canterbury, going ape at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park or Howletts Wild Animal Park, and taking the ferry to Calais to la belle France.