Camping in Silverdale :)

Ooooh I definatly need a little bit of sunshine. It is sooo grey out there and at times like these I wonder what can I possibly write about? So I thought I would go back in time and tell you about a lovely chilled camping trip we went on in May last year. I really love the sea side so I thought I would try and find a camp site on our own Lancashire coastline. The camping criteria with us is almost always somewhere that is dog friendly, in beautiful countryside and within walking distance of a pub. 🙂 We found the perfect place! ‘Gibralter Farm’ in Silverdale.

The very name ‘Gibralter Farm’ conjours up warm sunshiney days and we were in luck! The campsite is situated on a working farm in the heart of the Silverdale and Arnside Area of Outstanding Natural beauty with gorgeous views over Morecambe Bay. We pitched our tent in the lower left field which is adjacent to a little wooded area where you can camp too.
There are lots of footpaths from the site and if you wander through the woodland there is a perfect little cove where we saw Oyster catchers and Shelduck. Ok I was more excited about the birdlife than my other half but yes I am a bit of a bird nerd!

A little cove.

Windswept tree.

Even he was impressed that Gibralter Farm has its own resident Green Woodpecker. I spent a lot of time trying to capture its vivid colours on camera but the best I could manage was this siluette shot.

Green Woodpecker.

We wandered into the village of Silverdale a couple of times. It has a convenience store,a butchers, tearooms, an Indian restaurant and two pubs ‘The Royal Hotel’ and ‘The Woodlands.’ If you like your real ales and somewhere a little different try ‘The Woodlands'( If you can find it!) which is run by the villagers in an old manor house.It is kind of a bizarre place which also had a pop up victorian tearooms in one of the downstairs rooms when we visited. 🙂
We also had lunch at ‘The Wolf House Gallery ‘ across the road from Gibralter Farm.It was a little expensive but the food was good.

Silverdale itself is in Lancashire and neighboring Arnside only two miles up the road is in Cumbria.Both are well worth a visit. Arnside is a pretty village facing the estuary with a tiny promenade of cafes and gift shops.We took our dog Jake here for some walks on the beach and he made friends with a local dog. 🙂

Arnside Estuary.

Sat outside the Fighting Cocks with views over to Morecambe Bay.

If you love your wildlife make sure you take a walk round the RSPB Leighton Moss Nature Reserve where you can see all sorts of water fowl in the reeds. Unfortunately as we had Jake there were not to many areas we could take a dog.There is one public walkway where you can walk the hound,on a lead of course.

Tufted Duck in the Reeds.

And a stay here is not complete without sampling the local delicacy ‘Morecambe Bay Potted Shrimps’ which are caught in the shallow waters of the bay. We tried some in the nearby seaside town of Grange Over Sands.

Gibralter Farm Campsite.

Hopefully we will try and head to Gibralter Farm again this year for a nice relaxing camping trip by the sea. 🙂