Trebarwith Strand

This was the fifth year out of the last six that we've holidayed in Cornwall. There are some places we know fairly well now as we've visited them most years, these include Padstow and Ilfracombe, which I wrote about in my Crossing The Border To Devon post.

As well as returning to certain villages each year we usually frequent the same beaches, but this year we found a fabulous place called Trebarwith Strand. I'd read about it before we went so during our first week away, we went and found it. There's a convenient car park just up the road from the beach and a few little gift shops and eateries on the way down.

What I didn't realise was that when the tide's in, it covers the whole of the sand and all that's left to see are the rocks at the base of the cliffs.

I've never seen so many muscles, limpets and periwinkles clinging to rocks as I did here.

The tide was right in and there was no chance of getting on the beach so we decided to abandon our plan for that day.

When we got back to the lodge, we checked the tide times for the rest of the week. The following day dawned sunny so we decided to make a second trip, this time ensuring that our visit coincided with low tide.

The crustaceans were still there, I was fascinated by them, so many to see.

Even Archie was intrigued by them.

There were lots of anemones attached to the rocks too.

We saw a few jellyfish along the beach, nothing to worry about though, they were few and far between.

I don't know what this is, perhaps another variety of jellyfish, quite odd looking though.

There's 800m of sandy beach at Trebarwith Strand when the tide's out, which is contained by cliffs. Natural caves are found in the cliffs.

We decided to go and explore one of the caves, though I have to say I wasn't all that excited about the prospect as I get a little claustrophobic sometimes.

Looking out through the mouth of the cave, you can see that this area of the beach is quite rocky. There's lots of little rock pools with all manner of creatures swimming about.

The cave walls were interesting. We'd left Daniel on the beach, I'm sure he'd have been able to tell us something about the geology of them had he been with us, he got an A* in his GCSE.

There were lots of rocks inside the cave as well as outside.

Right at the back of the cave, you can see how it narrows. I nearly turned round when I was half way in, I'm glad I made it now. There was lots of dripping water from  parts of the roof.

The sun was shining brightly as we came back out of the cave.

Archie had fun again in the rockpools. He always dries himself off by rolling in the sand. Daft dog!

Trebarwith Strand is a fabulous beach, you just need to make sure that you've got the tide times before making a trip there as you could be disappointed. There's lots to see, and it's great for adventures, especially if you've got children with you, caves, rockpools, sand, sea, rocks, what more could you ask for?

On our way back to the car, we stopped off at one of the beach cafes for a portion of chips and some hot doughnuts.

Mmmm, those doughnuts were delicious, my mouth's watering just looking at the photos of them.

We had a perfect day. A wonderful place to go in summer when the sun's shining.

This post has been submitted to dotcomgiftshop as an entry in their summer competition.