Lady's Mile in Dawlish - a campsite with a pool for rainy days

Lady's Mile Holiday Park is a large campsite in Dawlish, Devon, near Exeter and about 1.5 km from Dawlish Warren beach. It has an indoor and an outdoor pool with water slides, so it works well on rainy days. We stayed here twice in August 2019: on the way to Cornwall and on the way back north.

The day before we saw Stonehenge in the rain. The plan of the whole trip is in our post UK road trip with kids.

Driving south-west in the rain

You may ask what a summer holiday in Britain is really like. Pretty good, unless it is raining. And the rain had been with us since the day we arrived, every single day. Even when the sun came out for a moment, the rain came back soon after.

So we just followed our plan and drove south-west towards Cornwall. In weather like this it is better to sit in the car than in a tent anyway. We avoided traffic jams by taking side roads. On narrow B roads, passing a car coming the other way is quite a challenge.

Lady's Mile campsite in Dawlish

From Stonehenge it was 155 km and took us over 2 hours. The campsite is big, with tent fields, caravans and a water slide tower you can see from the entrance. We put up our tent, put a tarp over the entrance and had dinner at our table under it. In the evening the sun came out for a moment, and the kids ran out with a ball onto the grass, with a view of the hills around.

A rainy Saturday at the campsite

On Saturday we stayed at the campsite. As far as we remember, it was raining again. We had a chance to hear the local dialect, which was almost impossible for us to understand.

We also admired our neighbours' tents. British families put up huge tent sets. We hardly saw any tents from brands that are popular in Poland, like Decathlon. We were sleeping in our green Quechua tent from Decathlon.

A pool for rainy days

The campsite has an indoor pool with water slides and an area for toddlers, open all year, and in summer also a heated outdoor pool. Guests can use the pools as part of their stay. When it rains, this is the best place for kids.

Back to Lady's Mile after Cornwall

On Sunday we drove on to Cornwall, to St Michael's Mount and Land's End. On Monday, 19 August, we turned east and after 215 km (3 hours 10 minutes) we stopped at Lady's Mile again. It rained again, but the campsite had an indoor pool. The next day we headed north to the Forest of Dean, where Puzzlewood was waiting for us.

Practical info

• Location: Exeter Road in Dawlish, Devon, about 1.5 km from Dawlish Warren beach.
• Booking: we booked both stays on pitchup.com, a grass pitch with electricity.
• Pools: the indoor pool with slides is open all year and the outdoor pool in summer, included for campsite guests. We used the indoor pool in 2019, but check the current rules on the campsite website before you go.
• Roads: side roads in Devon and Cornwall can be very narrow. In a bigger car drive slowly and be ready to pull into a passing place.
• A good stop on the way from the London area to Cornwall: Land's End is about 3 hours' drive from here.