A UK Staycation visiting the Lincolnshire coast and Wolds

With Spring half term approaching, I started to think about taking another UK staycation with my parents and their dog Lily. With foreign holidays still being complicated, it seemed that everyone else had had the same idea and prices for a caravan holiday in the parks we’d usually use were way out of our budget. Not giving upon the idea, we kept regularly checking prices in the hope that something last minute would appear and with prices at chain sites not budging, I decided to google privately hired lodges and static caravans.

Finally, on the Friday the schools broke up, a couple of options turned up, an AirBnB static for hire on private land in the Lake District, a lodge in Norfolk reduced on Hoseasons after a cancellation and a caravan in Lincolnshire on a small privately owned site by a fishing lake, all pet friendly and all around the same price. The AirBnB option disappearing as fast as it appeared, we knew we had to make a decision quickly so we went for the slightly cheaper option of the static caravan in Lincolnshire.

The site was situated inland on the edge of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Lincolnshire Wolds but the nearest beach, Mablethorpe was just a 25 minute drive away. After spending the weekend looking up which beaches were either completely dog-friendly or at least had dog friendly areas, we set off early on the bank holiday Monday morning, hoping to beat the traffic and arrive in time to spend an afternoon on the beach before arriving at our accommodation.

The journey went smoothly and without hold ups, the only problem being when we stopped at the services only to be met with the longest queue I had ever seen to get into the building and use the conveniences!

Deciding we could all hold on, we continued north of where we were staying towards Grimsby then, bypassing Cleethorpes (a resort with a huge, sandy beach but where dogs are completely banned throughout the summer season), drove south to Humberston where we were aiming to find and visit Fitties Beach.

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Following the satnav to our destination, we were slightly concerned when it seemed to be taking us straight through a huge Haven holiday park, especially as we could see arriving cars queuing to check in ahead of us.

Luckily, we were guided past the queuing arrivals and out through the other side of the park where we found a small, private village, the narrow streets lined with chalet-style holiday homes and pretty bungalows. We were eventually lead down a no-through road, the car park for Fitties Beach and the neighbouring RSPB Tetney Marshes lying at the end. The car park was super busy so we drove back out, managing to find on street parking just down the road and from here, we followed a public footpath between the houses, across some dunes and onto the beach.

The beach was more mud flats than sand and the tide was so far out we could hardly see the sea but there was the sun was shining and there was plenty of room for Lily to have a run around so we spent a bit of time walking towards the Tetney Marshes end of the beach and back again.

After spending an hour or so exploring, we walked back to the car and began to drive towards the town of Louth, our accommodation being situated a few miles outside of the town in the village of Alvingham. As soon as we arrived, we knew we had made the right choice of sites for a relaxing holiday. Our caravan was one of just 3 statics on site, all of which overlooked a large fishing lake. A few tourers were parked up on the rest of the grassy field beside us while chickens roamed free around the site, their fresh eggs being sold daily.

After checking in, we drove the short distance into Louth to grab fish and chips for dinner then that evening, we took a walk along the disused canal which lay behind the site, the path eventually lead to Louth but we turned around long before that point!

The next day, we took a ride out to the coast and a beach we had researched to be dog friendly. Not far from the better known Mablethorpe, Huttoft Beach was a little gem. The beach was backed by a busy car park but after parking up, we walked away from the crowds sat in front of the car parks to an almost empty section of the beach in the distance. It was a warm, sunny day but Lily had a great time keeping cool with regular dips in the sea, chasing sticks and rarely bringing them back again!

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After returning to the car for a picnic overlooking the sea, we decided to drive on to look at a few other bays, the first being Sandilands.

With it now being early afternoon and the sun still shining, it was suddenly very busy and we were unable to find a space on the small car park or nearby. We continued on to Sutton-on-Sea and then Mablethorpe itself but had the same problem at each place so instead we drove to try to find the beach at the Saltfleetby-Theddlethorpe Dunes, nearby National Nature Reserve. We instead ended up at an entrance to the Nature Reserve that did not have beach access but instead, there was a trail to follow around the reserve and viewpoints of the distant dunes so we spent a bit of time looking around.

We returned to our caravan park late afternoon but after dinner, went out for another canal side walk, this time walking in the opposite direction and heading away from Louth. Our walk took us towards the village of Alvingham and, reaching a bridge crossing the canal, we crossed it into the village, past the village churches and looped back through the village to reach our caravan park again.

Back at the caravan park, we picked up a few leaflets outlining countryside walks in the local area and in the nearby Lincolnshire Wolds and made plans to have a day away from the coast the next day and explore the Wolds a bit instead.

Awaking to yet another day of glorious sunshine and warm temperatures, we were conscious of going somewhere where there would be plenty of shade for Lily and possibly some water for her to cool off in so we decided to drive to the nearby Hubbards Hills, a country park in the Wolds. Parking up at the free car park at the back of the park, we entered the park to find a shallow river which Lily dived straight into. The pretty park has a path running from one end to the other which runs alongside the river. Lily wasn’t the only dog paddling in the river and as we got closer to the busier side of the park, we found an area in which children could paddle and play in the river too. We instead, walked away from this area, up into the hills and followed a shady path through the trees which eventually lead us out into a nearby village. From here, we crossed the river and walked back into the park, finding a quiet patch of grass to site and have a picnic before following the riverside path back to the far end where Lily once again cooled off in the river before we returned to the car.

It was mid-afternoon so after our walk in the Hubbard Hills, we decided to drive to one of the villages in the Wolds to follow one of the ‘Wolds Walks’ on a leaflet we had picked up from the caravan site.

We drove to the pretty South Thoresby, parking in a layby and trying to make sense of where we were on the map we had on the leaflet. Finding the church where the walk started at, we struggled to work out which direction we were to walk in to being our walk so we followed the public footpath signpost and hoped for the best.

We didn’t get very far before we reached what seemed to be someone’s back garden. Confused, we returned to double check that was indeed where the signpost was pointing. A local saw us hesitating and called across that we were going the right way and to go through the gate. Following his instructions, we found that the footpath cut right through a garden before leading out to a field the other side!

Following the signpost to a stile, we helped Lily through and continued along the path, reaching main road at the end of it. It was at this point that we realised where we were on the map and that we were following a second, longer walk than the one we hoped to pick up. Not wanting to return back though the back garden again, we used google maps to work out a cut through back to the original route, although this did mean walking it in the opposite direction to how it was intended and following the instructions backwards!

Finding our way to the path marked on our route map, we managed to find the entrance to a public footpath running alongside a farmer’s field, past a copse and through some woods. We then followed a boardwalk over marshland which lead us back to the church in the village where we had started.

It had been a pretty walk through the Wolds on a warm, sunny afternoon and the drive through the Wolds back to our holiday site was just as pretty.

That evening, we attempted another canalside walk from our caravan but an exhausted Lily was having none of it and after reluctantly making it a few metres along the path, refused to move any further!

The last day of our trip was another warm, sunny one so we decided to head back to the coast, this time driving slightly further south to Anderby Creek.

The small car park at the beach was already full but we managed to find on road parking nearby. Walking up to the sands, we turned left at the entrance to the dog-friendly end, walking away from the crowds towards a near-empty sandy beach.

Lily once again had a great time splashing in the sea and insisted on taking up most of the picnic blanket we had brought out with us when it was time to have lunch!

We spent most of the day at the beach before returning to our holiday park again, spending one final evening taking a walk along the old canal.

We had really enjoyed our visit to Lincolnshire. It wasn’t somewhere we’d really considered going to before but we had found some really lovely beaches and what we’d seen of the Wolds had been really pretty. It’s definitely somewhere we’d love to return to!