It was a beautiful sunny day and we struggled to find a parking space due to lots of other people taking advantage of the weather and heading here to make the most of it.
An artificial lake, 'meare' or boating lake, was created in the village and besides a large main pond, there are several channels with landings marked with names of the Peter Pan theme. Tiny islands on the Meare contain locations found in J. M. Barrie's novel 'Peter Pan' such as the pirates lair, Wendy's home, and many others which children are encouraged to play on. The Meare was dug to a shallow depth for increased safety.
There is a beautiful horse which, along with his owner of course, pulls a cart and offers rides around the village for visitors. We didn't do this as it seemed quite expensive for what it was, but we were able to go up to the horse and give it a little stroke. Harry loved this as he has always liked horses so the chance to get up close to one was a really special treat.
We were on the hunt for an ice cream but the cafe near the lake was so busy so we instead went across the road to the tea rooms there. Woah, the cakes looked amazing and I couldn't resist a slice of the coffee, toffee and walnut flavour, served with a black Americano. Oh what a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
We briefly walked to the stoney beach, had a sit down and watched the boys throw stones as far as they could into the sea, seeing who could make the biggest splash.
Then it was time to go, and we felt quite sad really.
Thorpeness certainly has a lot more for us to experience and I can definitely see us returning again soon to explore some more (and eat some more of that cake of course!)
