log off, shut down, go outside!

We've been getting out so much more recently because of the weather being nicer. It has been great adventuring all over the place but the writing has taken a bit of a knock so I'm now playing catch up. after our trip to Bournemouth a few weeks ago, I thought it would be quite some time before we got a chance to scoot along the beachfront again. Last week though we found ourselves in one of those situations where it was just me and Opeie for two nights with no responsibilities keeping us in Shropshire. This also came with the added bonus of the sun being out and us having the best weather we have had this year. We've been itching to get the tent out, so we packed up the car and headed out on a spontaneous adventure.

I had asked my friends online for recommendations on where we should go and thanks to many of them we now have a long list of places to visit over the coming months. One town that popped up several times was Ynyslas. I'm not sure if it was the multiple mentions or the interesting spelling, but I knew that that was where we were going to be heading the following morning. Being only 2 hours drive from where we live it was the perfect destination for us if there was a sudden change in weather and we had to get back.

When we arrived we tried a couple of campsites but they were closed for the season, I was thinking maybe we had been a little too ambitious trying to make the most of the first real bit of summer sunshine that we'd had, but the third site we tried came up trumps and it was an added bonus that although they only had an 8 pitch camping plot, we were the only ones crazy enough to be pitching a tent in April. As we had pulled into the site I had to chuckle to myself at the signs they had used to slow down drivers, the wording seemed a little strange but I also loved that for me it summed up our home-schooling adventure as Opeie does have a lot more free range than most children his age.

 The tent was up in no time at all and Opeie had made it very clear from the moment we had turned the engine off on arrival, that he wanted to be on the beach, so we packed some snacks and drinks and headed over to see what Ynyslas had going on on their seafront. The sun was lush but there was a strong cold breeze for the whole time we were there so our jumpers stayed on. That didn't stop us paddling in the sea and spending hours having fun on the beach though. When the wind had got too much we headed back to the tent and went for a drive to see what was going on. Plus we had to find a chip shop. Opeie has his own little tradition that if we go to the seaside we have to have a bag of chips on the beach.

As we drove through Ynyslas and into Borth we were clearly both thinking the same thing as we both said 'This looks great for scooting'. So we knew exactly what we were going to be doing the following afternoon. The temperature really dropped that night but we had plenty of blankets as well as our sleeping bags so we were confident that a couple of seasoned pro's like us were going to be just fine. The following morning was bloody freezing and although we woke up early neither of us wanted to get up because everytime we moved cold air would find its way into our sleeping bags. I wasn't holding much hope for a second night camping but once we were up and about it didn't seem that bad. We had some breakfast and I had a hot coffee to warm me up (my aeropress has become a camping lifesaver) and we were good to go.

Opeie of course wanted to hit the beach up again for a second helping of fun so (with the tide out this time) we hunted for shells and interesting rocks  while climbing under and over the breakwaters. Opeie wanted to create something arty on the beach so he started collecting piles of different coloured rocks. Using white rocks he wanted to make a big pair of eyes on the sand. This then moved on to using redish coloured rocks to make a mouth and then we started lugging larger grey rocks to create a face. We looked around for other things to use and Opeie found some green fishermans netting for the hair wrapped around a breakwater and some seaweed for the eyebrows, it turned out pretty good and we had lots of fun.

After he had reached his peak with the beach adventuring we headed back to get the car and of course the Micro scooters to continue our adventuring on wheels. We couldn't scoot from our campsite as there were no public footpaths so we drove towards Borth and parked up close to a seafront walkway. It's lovely to go somewhere like this and have so much free parking about. The scoot was great, investigating Borth and making our way to the high cliffside that we could see in the distance. When we reached the top the views were breathtaking and as we looked over the sea, we chatted about how lucky we were to be in a position to be able to have this kind of midweek fun.

 Later that afternoon the temperature really dropped but we still squeezed in a BBQ on the beach before it got far too cold. I couldn't see us sleeping in the tent for the second night so when we arrived back at the tent we had a little chat and Opeie said that he felt too cold to camp so we packed up the tent and put it on the front seats with all our other bags. Then we dropped the back seats and padded out the back with airbeds, sleeping bags and blankets. Opeie was so excited about sleeping in the car, I'd love to be that age again for a day.

The great part about packing up and sleeping in the car was that when we'd woken up and eaten, we were ready to go. I asked Opeie if he wanted to hit the beach before heading home but I think he had had his fill. So at 7am we were driving back to sunny Shropshire. It may have been freezing but being outdoors and adventuring around a new part of the UK for us, was 2 days full of home ed fun and we can't wait for our next camping adventure.