Surf and Turf Trip in Cornwall

It was an interesting proposition from Simon, rather than going down to Cornwall on Friday evening, he suggested getting up at silly o'clock in the morning to go down on the Saturday and head straight out into the surf. After much grumbling though, this is what was decided on and Simon, Gwylim, Ishi and I packed up the car on Friday night, including a shopping trolley full of food, and woke up at 5am on Saturday to cover the 240 miles from Oxford to Padstow.

Logically it was a sensible idea, but as the alarm went off on Saturday I had second thoughts. We wandered around with eyes half closed and eventually packed ourselves tightly into the car with all the bags. Simon blasted everyone with hot air to make us feel toasty/boil us alive and we made our way to the motorway using the all new satellite system known as Jen-Jen, which is cheaper than Tom-Tom but occasionally less effective.

The roads were pretty empty and the 4 and a half hour journey actually took us only 4 hours, and 30 minutes of that was getting stuck behind various tractors in Cornwall itself! We met Liam, Helen and Lexi on the campsite at Trevone and had a lovely cup of tea to warm us up. We then waited for Becks to arrive by erecting the tent and shaving Simon's unruly mop of hair.

We all then set off for a day at the beach. In the morning we took Simon's raft out for its first voyage in a long, long, long, long time. We tried surfing with it, we tried rowing it around the bay, we even tried tipping it up with Gwylim in it, eventually we abandoned the raft for lunch on the top of the cliff overlooking the beach, and even managed some cooking on the portable stove.

Frisbee on the beach followed after lunch and we all dug a big hole and I got put in it. The jencastle, as I was known, came complete with a moat. The sand was very saturated with water and I had to be dragged out for fear of getting stuck as the tide came in. We then took the boats down to the water and paddled off to find surf. We didn't know when we booked this weekend that there would be neap tides, meaning no surf, so we had to make do with exploring the rocks and the huge swell just beyond the headland.

We spent the rest of the afternoon launching each other into the water by doing somersaults. We started with the lightest first and managed to get Becks pretty high in the air, and eventually got around to Simon who was not as heavy as he looked and managed to clear the sea (albeit briefly) before crashing down into the water. We eventually packed up our things and went round to Helen's friend Sam's house for dinner, which was lovely.

On Sunday we all went to the amazing 7 acre Maize Maze, which kept us busy for over two hours hunting for clues in two teams, boys versus girls. The ladies won with Becks, Helen, Lexi and me finding all the clues and deciphering them with extra time to play on the giant trampolines while the boys were still traipsing around in the maze.

In the afternoon we went to Harlyn beach. We finished off our the food and played Frisbee in the very cold sea until we couldn't feel our feet any more. Lexi and Helen with Gwyl ,Ishi, Liam and Becks even tried to do som,e surfing but eventually it was time to go home.

We had a fun weekend, helped by the gorgeous weather, but will definitely be going surfing during a full moon next time for maximum surf possibilities!

- Jen

Simon's photos.