Cornwall

The next day was beach day, and the weather was perfect. We spent the day on the beach entertaining ourselves by
-Playing with poi and teaching Laura and Troy who both kept hitting themselves much to our amusement and Troy looked hilarious with my bright pink fluffy pair.

Troy looking manly with pink fluffy poi.

– Racing down to the water and diving in, then getting out shortly afterwards. Turns out the water really doesn’t warm up and the British aren’t just wimps.

Racing to the water

-Eating ice cream, there was a fantastic place that had sooo many yummy different flavours. So we had to make 2 trips there. I think my favourite flavour was rhubarb and custard, with the rhubarb not frozen and all gooey instead.

-Making a giant pool in the sand that captured the water as the waves came in. Going to the beach without playing in the sand just isn’t as fun.

That evening we meet up with two of our friends and had fish and chips on the pier, which we had to guard closely from the seagulls that were trying to steal them. It didn’t help that the boys had attracted them buy throwing the chips up into the air for them to catch, which was funny until they started swooping at us!

As we headed off to walk down to the end we saw a group of people all looking intently at the water so I raced off to see what they were looking at. In the beautiful clear water below us floated two seals staring right back at us, I think they thought we were as amusing as we found them. We watched them for ages as the floated lazily about, watching all the people take photos of them, they really do look like huge sea puppies. Eventually another seal arrived and then all three slowly made their way back around the pier and off in the distance.

Seals!

The sun went down with a beautiful sunset over the town, it was a perfect ending to a perfect day.

Wales the first part 2

After the castle we headed towards town, past the big Manor house, past the sheep that still had their tails, down a cute country road, past some very cute houses, still terraced even in the middle of no where, past a cute post office/cafe down to the bus stop where I inspected my shoes and jeans which were now slightly cleaner from the long grass but still very wet.

We waited and waited, Hagrid decided to go in search of food at the cafe, I wrote post cards sitting at the bus stop, Hagrid came back with lollies having had a lovely chat to the lady at the post office, and waited, and waited. Then the lady from the post office appeared asked where we were going then said jump in and kindly took us all the way into Carmarthen telling us about Welsh schools amongst other things. In Carmathen we went in search of food, which I found in the shape of a yummy roast pork roll mmmmmm. Then we headed off to our next place by train, thank fully the train was warm and dry so I was almost dry when we got off.

We got off at a train stop surrounded by caravan park, though they dont have Campervans like we do, the are more like rectangular mini houses on wheels (though sometimes not) that seems pretty firmly in place. We walked past these, and carried on and on. Then we asked some children outside a church for directions at the T intersection as neither of us knew where to go and carried on. We came across a farmer further down and asked for directions again which he gave us but warned that it was quite some way to go, we didn’t believe him and carried on, past another Castle which looked beautiful in the setting sun but had closed for the day. We found the little town stopped to buy food for dinner (not wanting to end up somewhere with no food like we almost did the night before) checked the bus times and discovered it was ages until the next and kept walking. By which time we had walked quite a way and thought it can’t be too much further. The the farmer we had asked for directions from earlier went passed then stopped and asked if we would look a ride which we gratefully took, and discovered that it was in fact quite a way and would have taken us a long time to get there, this was the 3rd time that day someone had stopped to drive us where we were going, very kind and friendly people. After warm shower I found tv and a book to entertain myself until Hagrid came back for his walk so we could make dinner.

The next day we decided to take the path along the cliffs back towards the Castle. It was spectacular, high cliffs with crashing waves beneath them. It was a fantastic walk. But of course it rained and the path was muddy so soon enough I was wet and muddy again but that didn’t matter.

It was quite a long walk but well worth it and finally we rounded a corner to see the beach and the castle. The surfers looked like black seals in the waves in their thick black wet suits, we decided that we would go for a swim if we could find somewhere dry to put our gear.

We walked past an ancient rock formation that was meant to be a burial place for a king I think.

Then down to the beach where we saw a girl come out of the water with no booties she told us that it was freezing! We looked around but there were no dry places to keep our clothes and bags from the rain so we didn’t stop for a swim. We walked around the Castle and had a peek inside but it didn’t look that interesting and we would have to pay so we went back to the train station to head for our next stop.

Tenby (I can’t remember when it was we stopped here but it was somewhere on our way) beautiful little beach town. We were amazed by the different colour houses and the massive search and rescue boat (though I think they call it something else) which was in a building at the top of a massive ramp which the boat slides down into the water when ever it needs to go out. That would be soooo fun to go down.

We explored that town, which still has a big stone wall around most of it, then headed down to the beach. The town is on top of the cliffs so we climbed down the stairs to the sand looking at the little gardens that had been put on the different ledges on the way down, so cute!

The beach was incredibly windy (even by NZ standards) so we went exploring the attached island which had a tunnel through the middle of it. It also had a building on top of it but that was fenced off, though I could see a possible way up scrambling on the rocks it was a bit precarious and with the wind blowing so hard I decided against trying. Hagrid bought a kite and had lots of fun flying it in the wind.