Continuing my 101 places to eat cake with dogs, series, this time we visited The Coffee Deck a dog-friendly café at Dinton Pastures Country Park. Set within a 350-acre country park, it’s the smaller of the two cafés on site.
Dog-friendly places to eat cake: 101 series #3
What to Expect at Dinton Pastures Country Park
Today we ventured to Dinton Pastures for our dog walk. The morning sky was grey, and the thought of another mooch around our local housing estate wasn’t filling any of us with much joy, so we decided to jump in the car and head to one of our nearby country parks instead.
Dinton Pastures Country Park, I think, is slightly misnamed. To me it sounds like a series of undulating grassy fields, so you may be as surprised as I was the first time I visited. It may once have been rolling pastures before the gravel was extracted to build the M4 motorway. Once the extraction was completed, the quarries were filled with water to form a series of lakes, each with wide, accessible paths that link up to create an extensive network.
Where to Park at Dinton Pastures Country Park
Today we chose to park in the overflow car park (turn left as you drive into the park), which is away from the main centre and children’s adventure play area. It’s much quieter, so a calm place to unload the dogs before their swim in the lake.
We took the path around the biggest lake, Black Swan Lake. I don’t exactly know how far we walked, my phone registered it as 2.6 miles, which is on the short side for us.
The dogs, however, did much more than that, as is their tootling wont, plus several trips into the lake. We learnt that Laney does actually have a bit of self-preservation around water. A couple of times she just stood at the edge of the bank and surveyed the lake rather than launching herself in. We could see she was calculating the angle of the entry slope and judging some places too steep.
Halfway Round: Time to Stop for Some Cake!
Just over halfway round the lake you’ll find the Activity Centre: a two‑storey building with toilets, a climbing wall and a few meeting rooms. Outside there’s another climbing wall and a group of small sailing dinghies and other watercraft that people can rent during the warmer months. It was great to see the indoor climbing wall actually being used.
Up on the top floor is a small but very dog‑friendly café. The cake selection wasn’t huge, but it did offer a good variety of options, including dairy‑free, gluten‑free and vegan choices. There also appeared to be a very tempting stack of bacon butties.
What we ate (cake, of course)
We chose the dairy and gluten-free chocolate brownie, the lemon and lime drizzle cake, and two cappuccinos, with chocolate sprinkles, of course. The chocolate brownies were really moist and gooey, while the drizzle cake was zesty and light. Definitely worth the pause.
We sat outside on the deck as the sun began to peek out from behind the clouds. Ziva, however, was not that impressed. Being on a second-storey open deck, it was a bit breezy and she’s occasionally starting to embrace being a grumpy old aged dog! She’s allowed to be, as she’ll be 12 on her next birthday. When the warmer days arrive, this dog-friendly café will definitely be worth a return visit.
- Cake: 5 stars
- Best cake choice: Chocolate Brownie
- Dog-friendliness: 4 stars
- Dog biscuits: No evidence
- Water for dogs without prompting: Yes
If you’re looking for more places to eat cake whilst out with your dog, you might also like my visits to the Kimel Community Cafe and the Lime Kiln Kitchen, which are both well worth a visit. This series is slowly growing into a collection of dog-friendly cafés that work just as well for the dogs as they do for us, and The Coffee Deck at Dinton Pastures is definitely one I’d come back to.
