Thursday photo #264

With half term so soon after the Easter holidays, it almost seems as if the children didn’t go back to school. As always, we’re cramming in several short UK breaks during the week off, and yesterday we came back from a week in a stunning part of Cornwall.

Camping in Cornwall

It’s a few years since we last went to Cornwall. Much as we love it there, we’re confined to school holidays these days and it does get ridiculously busy. A few years ago, we spent some time near Polzeath over the August bank holiday. It was nice, but I’ve never really been one for crowds and it was all a bit much.

This time though, we headed for the stunning Heligan Campsite, right next to the Lost Gardens of Heligan near St Austell. It’s clearly a popular area, but the vibe is more buzzing than crowded, thank goodness. It’s also stunningly beautiful, and I managed to fit in two sea swims while we were there. One was a social swim with the Mad Hatters at Charlestown. The other was on my own during a family beach day at Gorran Haven. There’s something to be said for being involved with a minority sport like wild swimming. Numerous people seem to seek out a local group for a swim, so I joined both seasoned locals and other tourists. We swam out to a stack of rocks and back, noticing a seal swimming around in there after we’d got out.

As a family holiday spot, this part of Cornwall couldn’t get much better. There was an off road cycle path leading from the campsite. It went all the way into the local town, Mevagissey. Between that, the Lost Gardens Heligan and a rather fabulous farm shop a couple of minutes walk from our van, we hardly drove at all. I’ll be reviewing both the Lost Gardens of Heligan and the campsite on the blog over the coming days. Suffice to say though, it’s somewhere we’ll definitely return to in the future.

Planning our next adventure

We’re not really planners in our family. My husband would say it’s me who isn’t a planner, but if he was particularly organised we definitely wouldn’t leave absolutely everything to the last minute. Inevitably though, as soon as we go anywhere, we start talking about the next holiday while we’re there.

At the moment, we’re torn between the Orkney Islands, somewhere else in Scotland or somewhere completely different. The Isle of Man, the Isles of Scilly, the Channel Islands, mainland Scotland and Northumberland have all been mentioned. We’re currently researching whether the midges would ruin our trip to the Orkneys if we went in August. We’re tempted to leave that one until next Easter to avoid the nippy little beasts. If anybody has a recommendation for a dog friendly UK family holiday, we’d love to hear it.

Thursday photo #264

I love this photo of the girls at the Lost Gardens of Heligan. The children’s half term activities there were excellent. The girls were particularly delighted that they included face painting and making headdresses. Running around an assault course with their faces painted was also a bonus.