I'd written up this second part of our Cornwall trip soon after returning home but we took so many photos that it's taken me forever to sort through and find my favourites!
Monday 25th July We set off from Millendreath a little before 10am and headed towards Newquay. J had asked to visit Newquay Zoo and as we couldn't check into our hotel room at the Esplanade until 3pm, we decided we could head towards the zoo and see if there was enough time to visit before going to the hotel.
Upon arriving at Newquay zoo, the car park and the zoo entrance looked so very busy that it put us off going in there. Particularly as it was now around lunchtime and by the time we'd eaten our sandwiches we wouldn't have that much time to spend there. Instead, we promised a rather dissapointed J that we would visit a zoo more local to home at another point in the summer holidays.
So we headed off from there to find our hotel. It is opposite Fistral beach and the whole area has stunning views with the Pentire headland to one side, Fistral beach in the middle and then Towan headland which we recognised from when we visited Cornwall in July 2013, that time staying at Sands resort in the Porth area on the other side of Towan headland.
By this time it was around 1pm so we left our luggage at the hotel and they said that our room might even be ready before 3pm. We decided to wander along to see Fistral beach. The sea was a little on the rough side and they closed the beach to swimmers and surfers for a while.
Our room was indeed ready before the official check-in time of 3pm so it was great to get in there and unpack and enjoy a drink from the AMAZING hospitality tray in our room; a wonderful selection of Cornish tea and coffee for the grown-ups and kids got their very own drinks tray with squash sachets, hot chocolate AND marshmallows. There was even a little jar of delicious mini shortbread biscuits too!
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A hospitality tray especially for the kids!
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| And a brilliant one for grown-ups too! |
We found that we had our own outdoor terrace area with table and chairs which proved to be a god-send in enabling us to enjoy meals together without having to venture into crowded restaurants. So Monday night, we ordered Dominos pizza. I do have to give Dominos a little shout-out for being awesome the world over it seems. When we visited Paris in 2015 we managed to order Dominos to arrive at the hotel we were staying at. Another time, when J was waiting at school for an open evening and we were stuck in traffic getting there (he went to school over an hour away from home), we ordered Dominos pizza to arrive at school for him and amazingly the pizza got to him despite there being huge crowds of people arriving for the open evening. Dominos did it once again in delivering our pizzas just where and when we needed them in Cornwall - thank you Dominos!
The kids were offered "build your own cuddly toy" activity packs upon arrival. Miss T loves her raccoon which she called Jesse. Our original stay had been booked for 2020 but Covid had spoiled our plans for getting to Cornwall until now so they boys are two years older than they would have been when we first booked but D still wanted his own activity pack with cuddly raccoon - I guess you are never too old for cuddly toys.
We watched a beautiful sunset that evening from Pentire headland and then Richard and I headed to the swimming pool at about 9.30pm in the hope of finding it quieter. There were still a few people in there so we decided that we'd leave it even later next time as it is open from 8am until 10.30pm. At reception, they very kindly offered to even open the pool an hour early for us if we ever wanted to swim without anyone else being in there in order to keep Miss T as safe as possible.
We booked in for breakfast at 7.30am each day. Booking for breakfast is necessary and evening meals in the restaurant also need to be booked.
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The evening view
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Tuesday 26th July
We had a lovely breakfast - they did a great vegan cooked breakfast which I enjoyed, J and Daddy had full english and D and Miss T had pancakes, bacon and maple syrup. There is also a selection of pastries, yogurt, cereals, fruit salad and porridge too.
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| Vegan Full-english breakfast |
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Miss T's bear "Cuteness" joined us for breakfast most days
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| Along with Hoppy and Patch too! |
Then we headed off to another National Trust place called
Godolphin where we were meeting up with friends who we had never met with in person before. Abbie is the same age as Miss T and also has Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA). A few years ago she came up with an idea to help other children with JIA and it was a perfect fit for what we were doing with
Juvenile Arthritis Research charity. So together, Abbie's idea was brought to life in the form of
"A little Box of Hope" support packs which are available to any child in the UK with JIA. Since then the idea has expanded further into a "teen" version of the boxes aimed at over 10s (and even adults with JIA can request them too!)
So needless to say, we think Abbie and her mum Sam are amazing as they carefully hand pack each box and write a personalised note for every child receiving one to give them hope for the future as it is a scary and lonely time when you are first diagnosed with JIA.
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| We also met Abbie's nan (who also helps with the Little box of hope packs too!) |
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| Team JAR! |
Abbie and Miss T got on really well and enjoyed playing badminton at Godolphin. We enjoyed another National Trust lunch (this time I chose a cheese scone I had my eye on and the kids had sandwiches and sausage rolls). J managed to twist his ankle and D took some great photos of the plants around the grounds.
Back at the hotel, there was time for some table tennis.
And in the evening, we decided to treat ourselves to room service eating on our terrace area again. One of the seagulls did manage to swoop down and grab a big chunk out of a burger bun but after that we remained on full alert to keep the seagulls away from our food.
Turned out that unlike most other diurnal birds, these particular seagulls were awake all through the night! It didn't particularly bother us but it was fascinating to hear seagulls squawking throughout the night.
Wednesday 27th July
We decided to visit Crantock today and see the tidal bridge. Later on J and Daddy did a run and discovered just how hilly Newquay is!
For dinner, we headed to the Harbour Chippy and wow what a fantastic chip shop this is! I had a battered vegan sausage and something that is quite possibly one of the best foods I have ever tasted - I ate it in the car whilst it was still hot and it was melt-in-my-mouth delicous. I don't often bother to write tripadvisor reviews unless somewhere is exceptionally good or particularly awful. The pea fritter I had fell into the category of exceptionally good so I even wrote a tripadvisor review about it. I thought about that pea fritter so much in the days since and I've been on a mission to track down somewhere closer to home where I can find such an item on the menu (I think I've tracked a chippy down just over an hour's drive away and I can't wait to go there).
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| A jellyfish washed up on Fistral beach - there were loads of jelly fish this year! |
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| My fave chippy! The Harbour Chippy where they did exquisite pea fritters!!! |
On Wednesday evening, Miss T stayed up late until 10pm when we headed to the pool. Thankfully there was no-one else there and we had the place to ourselves. Sadly, my little mermaid who was so good at swimming has forgotten how to swim as she hasn't been swimming throughout the whole pandemic. Hopefully it will come back to her with a little practice.
Thursday 28th July
This next bit is the only bit of diary I seemed to find time to write up at the time...
So today, on our last full day here in Newquay, it is surf school day.
The
weather is perfect. Possibly the warmest sunniest day we've had since
arriving in Cornwall and the sea is calm with waves of 30cm. Given that
I've had some traumatic sea experiences in the past, that suits me fine.
D
has been refusing to do surf school so I checked with
quiksilver about
whether I could swap with him and they said that was fine.
I
have no idea exactly how much I'll be able to do given my hip and back
problems but I've taken extra pain relief meds so we shall see how it
goes.
We knew we couldn't
go too far afield given we'd have to be back, lunched and ready for
surfing in time. So after our usual wonderful 7.30am breakfast, we
stayed local and went along to Towan headland. We recognised visiting it
from our stay in Cornwall back in 2013. That time we were staying on
the other side of it at Sands resort in Porth area. Once again, more stunning coastline to see and amazing views.
We grabbed some sandwiches from the Spar convenience store en route back, then it's going to be surf time soon!
After surfing...
What an exhilarating experience!
In the end, J didn't want to come surfing either so it was Miss T, Richard and me. D came along to take some photos and he managed to get some great photos despite telling us at the time that he'd only photographed dogs on the beach.
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| Photo by Daniel |
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| Photo by Daniel |
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| Photo by Daniel |
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| Photo by Daniel |
I struggled with carrying my own board, as did Miss T so Richard had a few extra journeys to get the surfboards to the beach for us and then back to the hotel. Quiksilver surf school is situated on site at the Esplanade hotel - literally just next door. We could borrow everything we needed - the wetsuits, the vest, and the surfboard.
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| Photo by Daniel |
Our instructor was Danni and she was awesome. I have quite a big "sea fear" since having a traumatic experience in the sea when I was a child so I was worried that I would be scared. But the sea was really very calm and gentle and the tide was coming in. We only went waist deep so felt comfortably within my depth. Danni reassured us that even if we got a jellyfish sting, it feels like a wasp sting (Richard did get stung twice on the foot!)
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| Photo by Daniel |
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| Photo by Daniel |
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| Photo by Daniel |
At first Miss T was feeling anxious and didn't want to come in the water but when she saw how much fun everyone else was having, she changed her mind and joined in. She absolutely loved it!
There was a group of 7 of us in total (there would have been 8 if J had joined in) and we were given instructions and a safety briefing on the beach before going in the water. Then we had 10 minutes of familiarising ourselves with the board in the water by practicing getting onto the board on our bellies. I was NOT very good at this and ended up falling face first in the water more than I was on the board at first.
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| Photo by Daniel |
Then it was back to shore to learn how to pop up. I knew this would be beyond my ability with my hip and back problems so I was content just being on my belly. I did ache all over the next day and kept up with my extra pain relief but thankfully, knowing my limits and not attempting to carry my own board or attempting anything that would put my hip or back in jeopardy meant that I could deem the session a success despite my limitations.
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| Photo by Daniel |
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| Photo by Daniel |
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| Photo by Daniel |
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| Photo by Daniel |
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| Photo by Daniel |
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| Daniel told us that he'd only taken photos of dogs! |
I was glad we'd booked it for our last day as I was too sore to do anything the next day when we were driving home.
We actually bought the set of photos taken by Pete (Newquay Photo Boss) on behalf of the surf school because Dan had told us that he hadn't taken any photos of us. Turned out that he was joking and he'd actually taken some great ones. So we have a set of photos by Pete as well - here are some of our favourites of that set.
Richard attempting to pop up:
Me being pushed off with a helping hand from Danni:
We love seeing in these photos how, as our smiles grow bigger, so does Danni's smile. You can see the satisfaction she gets from seeing others enjoying the waves.
Were were too tired to do anything for dinner other than get room service. We'd also managed to get a parking space in the hotel grounds for the first time since arriving (which would be handy for the morning when loading up bags) so we didn't want to risk losing that by heading off to get dinner elsewhere.
This time eating indoors to hide away from the seagulls.
Friday 29th July
Another wonderful breakfast got our day off to a nice start. Followed by packing up our bags. The great thing about an 11am family-friendly check-out meant that we hadn't needed to do any packing the evening before. We were able to leave all the packing for Friday morning.
We managed to set off at about 10.30am. This time we weren't so lucky with the traffic and it took a loooong time to get home. We ended up not getting home until around 8.30pm. We'd planned to stop at Stonehenge on the way home and had booked a time slot at 3pm. It was after 3 by the time we got there and it was incredibly busy and incredibly hot. Even the queue in the coffee shop was horrendous so we couldn't even buy any snacks there. We decided to give visiting the stones a miss and continued on our journey home.
I've chosen to focus on the good parts of our break to Cornwall because that is what I want to remember, but going away with autistic children is never straight forward and there are some memories I hope to forget. Overall J really stepped up and was brilliant most of the time. However, he had one evening when his worries really got to him and he didn't manage to sleep until 4am, which meant I didn't manage to sleep until 4am. We ended up waiting for the tumble dryer to become free to use during this time but it was so exhausting trying to communicate with someone who struggles to tell you what is wrong and what their worries are.
The following day, D was struggling - so it often feels like we never get a true break even (especially) when on holiday.
Cornwall is such a beautiful place and we really hope to be back there again soon. The Esplanade is the perfect place to stay in terms of location and family-friendliness. Nothing was too much trouble for the staff there and they went out of their way to make us feel welcome whilst respecting our need to keep our family as safe as possible due to clinical vulnerabilities. We very much appreciated that.
