Oakdown Touring & Holiday Caravan Park

Based on the East Devon Heritage Coast in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the area around Oakdown has walks, wildlife, history and geology galore. Stretches of coast here and along the Weston Valley are managed by the National Trust and there’s easy access to the tors and Bronze Age features of Dartmoor National Park. Historic villages are all around for sightseeing, traditional pubs and the essential Devon cream tea: Branscombe, the longest village in England, has a working Victorian thatched forge, a Norman church and a drive-on beach, or there’s the shingle beach and caves of Otterton’s Ladram Bay, home of the Otter Estuary Nature Reserve. The fishing village of Beer is five miles away with huge quarry caves to explore, gardens and a model railway at Pecorama, sea fishing from its sheltered shore or just picking up a fresh catch from the fishermen on the beach. Not that you’d get back to base and pretend you landed the haul yourself… Sidmouth has its famous Folk Week to bop along to in August each year; between sets, wander down the Esplanade from the red cliffs to Jacobs Ladder Beach, amble around the nineteenth century Connaught Gardens – with more music at the bandstand in the summer months – or take in the spectacular view towards Salcombe Hill after clambering up Peak Hill Slope. The village of Sidbury is in the Sid Valley a few miles inland from Sidmouth and has an Iron Age fort, a working watermill and a Saxon crypt at St Giles Church. Day trippers are spoilt for choice too: start off in the historic city of Exeter with shopping, museums and its famous cathedral as well as Bicton Park Botanical Gardens to sink down and relax in. The watersports centre of Exmouth has its Country Life Museum and is one of the several Devon gateways to the Jurassic Coast for fossil-hunting and coastal clambering: hire a bike in the town to go along the seafront and up the Exe estuary to Lympstone, or explore the estuary by taking a tram from Seaton along the River Axe. Junior campers can fly high at the adventure areas at Crealy Adventure Park between Sidmouth and Exeter, with farm animals and pony rides for when they’re back down to earth. If they’re still equinely inclined, the famous Donkey Sanctuary is a short walk from Oakdown and there’s pony trekking available at Farway.