Roadtrip

The weekend papers for the last few weeks have all been full of ideas on how to spend your summer holidays this year enjoying what the UK has to offer. I had to laugh at one article which proclaimed 'it no longer matters what the weather is like when you holiday at home', especially as the three of us were sitting in a campervan in Cornwall, on the day when the south west experienced over a month's worth of rain fall while I was reading it! Yes, we seem to be ahead of the trend as we've just spent a week's holiday taking a roadtrip to Cornwall in a VW Campervan.

This is the second year we've done this, hiring our lovely vans from the helpful people at Seven Degrees West in Bristol. They import the vans new from Brazil and retro fit them out here in the UK with kitchenette and pop-top roofs. Our home for the week this year was bright red shiny Rockall.

Rockall the Camper Van

Once you get used to driving these big whales, they are as much fun as they look. It was great, the three of us upfront, Matt behind the wheel, music blaring and us all singing along. The Ting Tings were definitely top of our holiday playlist, Olive totally loves them, all their songs are now 'my songs' to her, with Pinky Dinky Doo podcasts coming a close second!

Our first stop was Little Meadows campsite in north Devon. This is a really beautiful site, set on a farm and cleverly landscaped with lovely flowers and hedgerows providing lots of privacy. It has gorgeous views over the cliffs and out to sea, and newly installed loos and showers, great. Plus a shop which sells home made organic cakes and Roskilly ice creams. Not that we sampled the cake as we were all sorted with Ben from SDW's secret recipe chocolate cake which comes in the fully stocked fridge to get you through your first couple of days, it's delicious!

The view at Little Meadows

Oh, we had so much rain here! But thankfully most of it battered down on us at night-time so we had some unsettled nights (mainly me and Matt, O had a great time sleeping in the bed in the pop-top roof) but were able to explore by day.

Olly in the pop top roof

Exploring the rock pools

The best day was definitely when the sun came out and we headed to Croyde, the site of Olive's first ever trip to the beach when she was just 6 months old. The beach at Croyde is wonderful, lovely sand stretching for miles, great surf and protection from the wind from the sand dunes. But we also had lots of fun on site, cooking on the little stove, and playing ball and with the bubble machine.

Olive's first ever trip to the beach at 6 months old

Sandcastles on the beach at Croyde

Bubbles by the van

From here we drove down to St Ives and stayed at Ayr Holiday Park. Not the prettiest of sites this, but it is only 5 minutes walk into St Ives and Olive enjoyed the playground.

St Ives

Although we arrived in the sunshine and hit the beach, the rain was pretty ferocious and the day I mention in my opening paragraph was a total washout. However, Olive was pretty happy just relaxing in the van so we just lay in late, had grilled mushrooms on toast, read the paper, watched the Pepa Pig DVD for the gazillionth time, played Uno, then eventually donned our waterproofs and trudged into St Ives, where Olive had a huge sleep in her buggy and Matt and I a bottle of wine and a fab lunch of whitebait and moules.

The rain didn't bother O at all, she was just happy running around in her raincoat, and as we were away before the schools break up, there were plenty of other pre-schoolers for her to make friends with, including a really tall 3 year old who kept wanting to pick O up and cuddle her. O went along with this for a bit, then eventually she said 'you do know I am a little girl (pronounced gel in her little Hackney accent) not a toy?' which had me rolling around laughing.

But, our final day was a triumph. Blue skies, sunshine and a whole day of sandcastles on Porthminster beach, finished off with fish and chips and ice creams on the harbour. I'm so glad we got that day, it was exactly what we had dreamed about from this holiday.

Porthminster beach

Matt and Olly on the beach

Olly in her sand car

Olive proclaimed it the best holiday ever! Not sure I feel exactly the same, but we did have fun. We then spent a night in a massive loft suite at Hotel du Vin in Bristol, god that bed was so comfy after a week in a camper van!