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An amazing beach. Take a picnic, you're likely to have these perfect white sands to yourself even on a summer's day. A brilliant place to let dogs, children and husbands run wild.
Luskentyre, Isle of Harris
Google map: tinyurl.com/yhzhvxt
www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/harris/luskentyre/index.html
A great, self catering, holiday home located right on the Cornish Coast. Brilliant accommodation, sleeping 10 people. Plenty to do, whatever the time of the year - with a hot tub and games room.
Had a family get-together there recently - plenty of space for everyone!
The owners have really thought of everything!
www.cornwall-breaks.co.uk
Google map: tinyurl.com/mntw8t
Situated on the most southerly point of England with uninterrupted sea views and under the flash of the Lizard Lighthouse above. Take an exhilarating coastal walk before calling in to the Polpeor Café and feast your eyes on some extreme homemade delights. You may be forgiven for being tempted to try a variation of the traditional cream tea on offer and opt for a Jubilee Meringue instead: a moutainous meringue topped with clotted cream served with a delicious apple and blackberry compot and icecream for £4.50
Polpeor Cafe, The Lizard, Helston, Cornwall, TR12 7NU
01326 290939
Hope Cove is a super safe, clean family beach - holiday heaven. Stay in one of the many cottages or seaview hotels and enjoy a holiday in South Devon.
Lots of people think Sheringham's got a stony beach full of pebbles, but just wait till the tide goes out. It's got a long flat sandy beach which is just great for the kids to play on. The beach is brilliant for building sand castles, but with such a shallow gradient and no sudden drops the kids will be able to paddle all day long.
The town has everything you need for your day trip out, while still retaining its old world charm.
If you're looking for somewhere to stay, we'd recommend www.bookcottages.com/north-norfolk-its-coast.htm , the whole of the North Norfolk coast has so many interesting and diverse beaches you've just got to visit.
It's not in the summer. It's not in Thailand or the Balearics. And it's not a formal party. But if you want one of the best Hogmanay experiences in the world, get yourself to Portobello beach and join in with one of the many beach fires that spring up along the front. Someone will be passing the single malt. Someone else will be shooting fireworks out to sea. Everyone's chatty and friendly. Best Hogmanay you can have.
Portobello Beach in Edinburgh. Get the no. 26 bus from Princes Street. Fires all along the front. Head East for some of the more convivial groups. The Esplanade pub is a good place to top up or get warm!
Beautiful sand dunes and walks along the beach. Fantastic fish and chips at West Beach cafe. Go when tide is out for a perfect family beach.
Littlehampton, West Sussex
Both great beaches for beach parties. St Ives is close by and has good butchers and fishmongers for beach barbecues, off licences and supermarkets. Both also have cafe/restaurants and toilets behind the beach.
St Ives cornwall
An ancient village inn right by the fishermen's pier at Port Bannatyne. Five guest rooms; continental hospitality; freshly landed seafood including langoustine.
This place is of exceptional quality and thankfully very relaxed about it all... no tablecloths or pack-drill, just French quality meals, real ales, and Russian wines, beers and vodkas.
A mile long sandy beach and 200 seals close by. Be very nice to these good Russians they are providing a service unknown to Scotland! Along the seashore is a little marina and a pitch for playing Petanque.
Behind the village is a 13 hole golf-course with fabulous views over the water to islands, mountains and forests.
The Russian Tavern,
Seashore, Port Bannatyne, Isle of Bute, Argyll
01700 505073
www.butehotel.com
delicious.com/RogerMortimer
portbannatynemarina.co.uk
www.portbannatynepetanque.org.uk
www.portbannatynegolf.co.uk
Ferry for Bute leaves from Wemyss Bay on the A78 between Greenock and Largs. Direct train from Glasgow Central, and from Glasgow Int Airport and Prestwick Airport (RyanAir) RyanAir psssengers go half-price on the train.
Long gone are the days of my childhood, spent hunting for huge, edible pink crab with my great-uncle on the rocks of West Pentire. However, Vugga Cove on Crantock beach still holds many delights for rockpoolers, young and old.
This archipelago of pools is a tapestry of oxygenating wispy lime green and the burnt umbers and siennas of bladderwrack. Skylarks sing overhead as you hunt with bucket and net for fish and crab. The tiniest of creatures await to be inspected; sea lice, baby translucent fish, shrimps. Two-inch long stickleback and little shore crabs lurk in crevices.
Later, hot and sticky from the chase, you can swim in the warmed waters of Peggy's pool before the tide sweeps in to cover it.
Crantock beach, near Newquay, Cornwall
You sit on the side of the harbour and dangle a net/hook into the water and wait. After a while you pull the line back up and hope there's a crab or two hanging onto the end. You can buy a crabbing line from nearly all the toy/corner shops around Padstow for about £1. We found that by tying and net or an old vest onto the hook and filling that with 'welks' you caught more crabs as they attached themselves to the net. You can buy welks from the local fishmongers for a pound a pot. Or simply ask to have the leftovers of the fish parts which they will give you for a small contribution of 50p or so. Another tip is to take a fishing net, as we found the crabs fall off. So once you pull the line out of the water, put the net under crab and it will fall off into it - then you can put it into your bucket filled with water and watch them move about. Once finished crabbing however, then done thing is to take your bucket to the waters edge and tip it over and watch your crabs run back into the water. It's so much fun, and if visiting Padstow harbour, this is one the the things you MUST try.
Harbour Office
West Quay, Padstow, PL28 8AQ
01841 532239
When the tide goes out at West Runton beach near Sheringham it reveals a community of amazing creatures clinging to rocks, swimming in the salty shallows and sunning themselves on the once full pools. If you've forgotten your buckets, nets and spades, then the on-site cafe will sell you anything you need as well as a lovely cup of tea you can take down to the beach!
Follow the "beach" signs from West Runton village to the carpark.
This is the best place we have found for crabbing. It's a secret what to use to attract the crabs (don't tell anyone, but we always used liver).
Sometimes you would get the crab to the top of the pier before it let go. Now it is my grandchildren's time for this treat they have a cheat; a net that lays underneath, so when the crabs let go they fall in the net.
In Carnival Week in August there is a Crab catching competition.
Cromer is a lovely little seaside town which has not been spoilt yet, lovely for children's summer holidays.
Cromer has a train station. You catch the train from Norwich.
Take crabbing to the highest possible level by competing in the British Open Crabbing Championship held every year in the seaside village of Walberswick. Described as a competition for “children of all ages” – the only condition being that you weren’t born before 1890 - there can be few greater pleasures than joining the hundreds of competitors with line, weight and bait (bacon is said to be best, but the professionals will keep their choice to themselves) and then teasing the crab out of the water and into the bucket. If you can’t make it to Walberswick on Sunday 9th August this summer then any other day will do. Our daughters, now in their late teens, have the fondest memories of hanging off a bridge, filling a bucket with crabs and then releasing them, often a hundred at a time. An essential family experience.
Walberswick is in Suffolk, across the river from Southwold (take the rowed ferry) Details of the crabbibg championships at www.walberswick.ws/crabbing/
Sandwich your beach visit with a delicious ice cream.
Okay, I'm biased because I live here, but Whitley Bay has one of the best beaches in the world - loads of sand, luscious seaweed, intriguing rock pools and an amazing view north towards the wonderfully photogenic St Mary's Lighthouse.
When you have had enough of exploring the delights left behind by the tide, head up Watts Slope onto Marine Avenue (beside the Spanish City dome which is currently being refurbished) for 'real' fish and chips from one of the many cafes and follow it with a traditionally made Italian ice cream from Delaval Ices at the Cafe Mediterraneo.
Tyne and Wear Metro - Whitley Bay
Newgale is a beautiful, long, sandy beach and a favourite haunt of surfers. There's handy car parking and a small village with a surf school, cafe (Sands Cafe) and camping behind the beach.
Walk south along the beach to find the rockpools with crabs, anemone's.
Newgale SA62 6AS
I recommend Newton Ferrers, situated about 10 miles southeast of Plymouth for the best rockpooling in the UK.
Actually I haven't been there for years now, but my rose-tinted memories of endless summer holidays are so vivid, I hope the reality still lives up to it.
There are two beaches near the fishing port of Newton Ferrers, one is called Stoke Beach, and it had a caravan and camping site above the beach. It was a long walk down from the field/carpark and then we found a stretch of golden beach with dozens of coves, caves, rocks and pools to explore. The other beach was/is called Warren and it is found nearby, across a meadow filled with butterflies and ladybird colonies dotted all over the wildflowers and long grass. I remember a tricky scramble down over rocks and then a leap across the sand to get to the beach. It was like a secret beach as very few people made it past the obstacle course.
My tip for rockpooling is to turn over the large flat stones with the pinky markings on and you're sure to find tiny starfish clinging on. Just look and leave them there, of course! For crabs, a good root around under the knobbly seaweed will offer a cluster of the little demons. Pick them up by their two sides between your thumb and forefinger. Watch them wave their claws at you with attitude, then place them back in the salt water and watch them scuttle off. I love the little, inch-long cat fish and dog fish - if I'm correct - that inhabit the pools. I love everything about these beaches. I would still go rockpooling today, given half a chance, even though I'm 47 and my creaking knees hamper any clambering.
Devon, Plymouth, Newton Ferrers, Stoke Road
At the southern end of the three mile stretch of sandy beach in Studland is a secret rock pool cove, cut off by cliffs on both sides. Wait until the tide slides out before skirting round the cliff face and you’ll find yourself in a hidden world of crabs, fish, barnacles, snails and weird looking worms.
My favourite way to get a closer look at these pool dwellers is with an old detergent tablet net with a bit of chicken or meat inside tied to the end of a stick. Wait a bit for whatever creature is enticed and carefully lift it out of the water, its weight will close the net behind it so it can't climb out- just take care when letting the blighters go!
Studland Bay, Swanage, Dorset
At the southern end of the three mile stretch of sandy beach is a secret rock pool cove, cut off by cliffs on both sides. Wait until the tide slides out before skirting round the cliff face and you’ll find yourself in a hidden world of crabs, fish, barnacles, snails and weird looking worms.
My favourite way to get a closer look at these pool dwellers is with an old detergent tablet net with a bit of chicken or meat inside tied to the end of a stick. Wait a bit for whatever creature is enticed and carefully lift it out the water, its weight will close the net behind it so it can't climb out- just take care when letting the blighters go!
Studland Bay, Swanage, Dorset
Rhossili Beach is beautiful, it gets a good wave as it picks up similar swells to North Devon. Though it lacks the power of many beaches in Cornwall or Devon it is by far easier to get to and has a very relaxed vibe.
But what I really like in Llangeneth is the Kings Head pub. It has good beer, great food - the dragons breath curry is fantastic after a day on the water - and order the crumble early as they make it in enormous quantities and it still sells out nightly. But the best thing about it is the whisky collection behind the bar. Single malts three deep the length of the bar on two shelves. They certainly help for the wobble back to the campsite, even if they don't help you get up for the dawn surf the next day.
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