Continuing the theme of finding places to stay within a couple of hours’ drive from home in South Wales, we booked a couple of nights away earlier this week in the Cotswolds. Having lived in Bath for five years, we are quite familiar with the Southern part of the Cotswolds Area of Natural Beauty, but there’s still a lot left for us to explore!
With not going abroad on holiday this year, we have really missed our pool time! So given that it was forecast to be 30C+ every day of our stay, we decided to splash out (haha!) and at the last minute booked ourselves in at Ellenborough Park, which has a beautiful outdoor pool area. The hotel is very family (and dog!) friendly; whilst we were there we saw lots of children, which made us feel at home. We stayed on a bed and breakfast deal and had breakfast outside on the terrace. The hotel is just outside Cheltenham which is ideally situated to explore the area. Apart from the pool, another of our favourite features was the huge tree swing in the gardens.
However, before arriving at the hotel, we had booked to spend the day at the Cotswold Country Park and Beach, a place which has been on my to-visit list for some time. We arrived at 10am, when we were allowed in as my aim was to get a space close to the beach. The park has put in a lot of effort marking out designated areas for each group to allow for social distancing, as well as limiting the number of visitors and operating a strict online booking system.
There are many additional activities that can either be pre-booked online or booked upon arrival; pedalos, rowing boats, SUPs, inflatable assault course. There’s also a high ropes course, but it didn’t appear to be operating when we were there. The first place we headed was into the lake for a dip as it was already warm. When it’s quiet, the lake is pretty still and clear but later on with everyone churning up the sand on the bottom it gets pretty murky – bear this in mind if it bothers you (like it did Sophie – fortunately we still had her body board in the boot of the car!).
We had a picnic lunch, but there are plenty of fast food options and BBQ facilities too. When she wanted to take a break from swimming, there were several great play parks that Sophie enjoyed, as well as digging in the little beach area (note – it’s not like actual beach sand, it’s quite firm!). Sophie had made a few friends and as usual it was tough to tear her away!
We got checked into the hotel around 6pm and after a quick shower headed downstairs to assess the dinner options.
Ellenborough has two restaurants; a fine dining one and a more relaxed pub food one. We had a look at the children’s menu for the latter, but Sophie wasn’t too fussed and we were back in the car en route to our trusty favourite with the golden arches!
When we’d finished dinner, it was still so warm and with a few daylight hours remaining we set off for nearby Winchcombe to meet up with a couple of friends for a chat and evening walk (Sophie is still gloating that I let her stay up until 11pm!).
Tuesday, I’d planned to visit the Confetti Flower Fields a little further north near Pershore, but as it was our only full day in the hotel we really wanted to make maximum use of the pool and after an early breakfast decided to camp out on sun loungers for the next few hours!
The only other place I definitely wanted to visit was Bourton-on-the-Water – a picturesque and very popular traditional Cotswold village through which the river Windrush runs. I’d heard it gets unbearably busy during the day with coach trips and day trippers so I figured with it being another hot day we could make use of the evening weather again.
We arrived around 5pm, which meant we didn’t have to pay to park at the main car park on Rissington Road (free after 3pm), and set off to the co-op nearby to buy a few bits and pieces to make a picnic. We spent hours on the bank of the river; eating, paddling, skimming stones and playing on the swings made out of the branches of the weeping willow trees.
With our feet and legs now cold from the river water, we headed back to the hotel via the Slaughter villages; Upper and Lower as I’d heard these were like mini-Bourton’s. I wish we’d have had more time to explore them properly.
Wednesday was our last day and after a quick morning swim and breakfast (note – the hotel does the best Eggs Royale I’ve had!) we set off to see some flowers.
The Confetti Fields have been open for 10 days this August and pre-booking was essential (£5 per person). Besides rows upon rows of multi-coloured delphiniums, there was a large sunflower plantation, a gift shop, cafe and plenty of portaloos and a baby changing facility.
So glad we went, but my goodness it was very hot walking around and we didn’t stay quite as long as I’d have liked, but nevermind. We set off for home, playing the game of see how high the car temperature gauge reaches (spoiler: it was 35.5C)!