Summer Holiday Seaside Adventure - Part 2

As luck would have it the weather brightened up beautifully for day 3 of our holiday so we went out and ate the most beautiful fish and chips for lunch at The Coastguard Cafe.  

This is supposed to be the best fish and chips on the island and they were delicious.  There is something special about eating fish and chips by the sea.

It would have been rude not have an ice cream for dessert so we went off in search of some new flavours: Gin and Pink Grapefruit sorbet for me, Banoffee Pie for my husband and the kids devoured a Kinder Bueno flavour and some kind of Chocolate/Marshmallow concoction.

Feeling like we'd gained about half a stone in just a few hours we decided to try out a bit of crabbing in the creek that afternoon.  We purchased the equipment we needed from the shop next to the ice cream parlour and waited for the tide to come in.  I don't know the first thing about crabbing so I just sat with the dogs and observed.  

My husband is a pretty good fisherman but it turns out that this doesn't equate to being good at crabbing so nobody caught anything but they all had fun trying.  

It was a very pleasant way to pass the afternoon and the dogs even dipped their paws into the water

Summer Holiday Seaside Adventure - Part 1

We had a week's holiday with the kids and dogs scheduled for the first week of summer holidays and we couldn't decide whether to go back to one of the sites we had been to and liked before (see my previous post on being creatures of habit) or to find somewhere new and exciting to explore.

After much deliberation and campsite research (OK, a LOT of research) we settled on Hayling Island.  We found a campsite which we thought would suit us all called Fishery Creek.  It seemed to be close enough to all the seaside action but quiet enough to get away from it all and have a good night's sleep. 

As luck would have it we arrived on a very hot Saturday afternoon to a very pretty campsite and a lovely pitch overlooking the creek.  We had booked to stay for 5 nights and so we needed to set up a bit of a base camp.  While we were doing that, the kids found and unpacked Twister to keep them amused for a while.

When we were all settled in we decided to go for an explore to see how far away everything was.  It turned out that pretty much everything was on our doorstep thanks to a footpath running along the side of the creek which acted as a shortcut.  It took no longer than 5 mins to walk to the nearest shops, take-aways etc and a further 3 mins to walk to the actual seafront.  There is a lovely ice cream parlour which we stopped off at on the way to the seafront called Pepperelli's.  They must have had about 50 flavours of ice cream and sorbet there so we were spoilt for choice.  I opted for Champagne and Strawberry, my husband opted for Millionaire Shortbread and the kids went for Cookies and Cream and Chocolate Ripple.  Yum yum.

We walked all the way to Funland (approx 25 mins walk from the seafront area nearest our campsite) to see what it was like. The kids had been there before a few times but my husband and I had never actually been there or indeed anywhere on Hayling Island.  We were quite impressed with the variety of rides on offer and decided to come back and explore it properly later on in the week.

On the way back we found a lovely pub called The Olive Leaf which was approximately 15 mins walk from the campsite where we could all have a cold refreshing drink (including the dogs).  They had a lovely bar/restaurant area inside but we opted to sit outside in the shade in their small garden area.  The place had a lovely friendly feel to it and we had a feeling we would be coming back.

The weather was too hot to be out exploring though so we headed back to base to relax and have a BBQ.  We played games, ate far too much food and laughed all afternoon.

The kids went to bed quite early after a busy day but we stayed up watching the sunset and chatting away.  It's beautiful evenings like this that make you truly fall in love with the camping life.

In true British fashion, the weather didn't quite hold up the next day so we decided to re-visit that lovely pub The Olive Leaf for lunch.  We were all pretty jealous of my step-son's burger:

Having said that all the food was delicious and we all finished our plates.  The lovely thing about this place is that they do pretty much everything on the menu in a smaller portion for the kids as opposed to having an actual kids menu where sometimes we find the portion sizes can be a bit small for a 7 and 9 year old.  Also they are very dog friendly with their own pub dog - a lovely Boxer.

As the weather was pretty chilly and windy we were hoping that Funland would be quite quiet (and we needed to walk off our lunch) so after going back to the campsite to change into some warmer clothes and jackets, we headed off along the promenade to enjoy ourselves for the evening.

It was really quiet, there were no queues for anything and the kids loved it. If you arrive after 5pm you can purchase a wristband which costs £7 per person and you can go an as many rides as you like, as many times as you like until 8pm.  You can also bring the dogs along too - although beware of them eating enough fish and chips off the floor to keep them going for a week!

The kids had a great time but we were all getting a bit tired so we called it a day at around 7pm and walked back to the campsite to relax and have an early night.

New Forest - Camping Unplugged

We were invited to the New Forest to join some of our friends (who are tent campers) for a weekend at White Meadow Camping which is a Camping Unplugged site near to a place called Lepe on the south coast.  There were 12 adults and 8 kids in total. We had never been to a Camping Unplugged site before and so we were not sure what to expect.  

We arrived in the Cali at an open field where there were lots of tents pitched up in groups around the various edges of the field.  We checked at reception to find out where our group was located (most of them had arrived already) and drove over in their direction.  There is no electric hook-up at these sites (hence the "unplugged" aspect) but for a weekend electric hook-up is not essential whether you are in a camper van or a tent.  Music is not really allowed unless it is a live acoustic instrument but you are allowed to have  a camp fire which is a nice touch.

Our group had organised themselves in a sort of semi-circle with the camp fire in the middle and we used the Cali to complete the circle and got to setting up while the kids played in the woods collecting sticks for toasting marshmallows on later, making new friends and playing with old friends.

We put our new flagpole up (with our new smiley face flag as well as the VW windsock) as a marker for our area and also as the toilets were quite a walk away at the opposite end of the field we thought it would help to guide the kids (and us) back in the right direction.

The weather wasn't quite as chilly as I was expecting for the New Forest.  Some of my previous posts mention my concern about how cold it can be but I think as we were so close to the south coast it helped.  It also very much helped to have the camp fire to keep us all warm.

I must confess I was a bit of a lightweight on the first night and went to bed early after a long day at work and lots of driving (it took us over 2 hours to get there in Friday afternoon traffic) but we were up and cooking bacon rolls for breakfast the next morning while the kids were all running around and playing.

We had a surprise birthday celebration for one of our friends and then we all bundled into our cars and headed off to Lepe Country Park to see the sea.  We caught a lift as we didn't fancy packing up the Cali for such a short drive - it's less than 10 minutes to drive but can be quite a long walk especially for the little ones.

Unfortunately dogs are not allowed on the beach so after a brief stroll around the country park (which seemed nice) and after the kids had a bit of a run-around in the very large playground there we headed back to the campsite.

We had a lovely afternoon BBQ-ing lots of food, eating, drinking and playing games.  Later that evening we all settled around the camp fire to toast some marshmallows and relax.

There was lots of rain forecast for the next morning so we decided to start packing up in the evening much to our friends' amusements as we probably had the smallest set up there!

When we woke up in the morning the rain was pouring down as expected so we set off for home early in our pyjamas.

I'm not sure that this particularly style of camping was for us.  The toilets and showers were portacabins / portaloos and there was a fairly decent washing up area but I wouldn't say it was the cleanest site I've been to.  The lights and hot water were all switched off at night at 9pm and turned back on at 8am which I found slightly annoying as I had to remember to take a torch to the bathroom but these were just minor niggles in the general scheme of things.

The important part was that it was a lot of fun for the kids and we managed to relax and enjoy ourselves too.

Weekend in Bognor

Suitably impressed with the Caravan Club site we visited at Morn Hill, we wanted to try another one of their club sites and so we opted for the Bognor Regis site called Rowan Park.  

The campsite was lovely and very clean with nice facilities.  We booked a hardstanding pitch and once again we were able to choose between a few options available.  I much prefer being able to choose our own pitch, I find it frustrating that the Camping and Caravanning Club Sites don't allow this.

We didn't want to put all of the awning sides up but we needed some shelter as the weather forecast wasn't looking great so we went for this option:

It worked out very nicely and gave us just the right amount of shelter and storage area but it was still quite nice and light inside the van, where we unfortunately had to spend most of the weekend due to the weather.

We did venture into Bognor though for a bit of seaside walking - we went quite early on a Saturday morning and had the place to ourselves.  It was lovely and certainly exercised the dogs nicely!  To walk into the centre of Bognor from the campsite takes about half an hour and there is plenty to do there.  If only the weather had been nicer!

There is a retail park just opposite the entrance to the campsite with a Lidl, Home Bargains, McDonalds etc so food and supplies are never too far away.  We did find it quite noisy at night though with lots of 'boy racers' on the main road outside the campsite.

The people were all very nice and friendly on the campsite and we met lots of other dogs too.  We made good use of our new wi-fi gadget by watching the rugby and having a few beers in the van.

We would love to come back to this site in nicer weather so we could see a bit more of Bognor but we had a nice relaxing weekend so all was not lost.

Thorney Island

We are now firmly in the we-want-to-go-away-every-weekend-in-the-camper-van zone so after our lovely time in Corfe Castle we headed down to Chichester for the weekend.  The weather forecast was good and we wanted to be by the sea.

We really like this campsite as it is so peaceful and quiet and there is a lovely local pub and farm shop within just a few minutes walk.  

Half way through our first evening we started chatting to one of the other campers (or rather motorhome-ers) and he mentioned a long walk that they had been on a few days before and it sounded quite appealing so we decided to brave it with the dogs the next day.  The walk was approximately 10 miles around Thorney Island and was very enjoyable.  There was a lovely sandy beach about half way around which we could have stayed at for the day and beautiful scenery to admire.

After several bottles of water, a few snacks and some fairly nasty insect bites we had every intention of walking around Emsworth and exploring the town a bit.  



However, the weather was nice and we fancied getting back to the camper van, getting changed and strolling over  to the nearby pub for a nice lunch outside in the sunshine (also I think the dogs had had enough!).  

Over lunch we decided that next time we should try to walk to Hayling Island - that could be another adventure for another sunny day maybe.

Even though we have enjoyed the Cali in the colder months, we are really starting to appreciate how amazing it is when the weather is nice.  We can set up the table and chairs, get the Cadac out and relax, eat, drink and be merry.