Crackington Haven

Two of my most favourite beaches are up on the North Cornwall coast so, on a pretty grim day, Finn and I drove cross country from South East Cornwall up and over the moors towards Bude.  The weather was appalling - grey and raining hard - and the scenery was very atmospheric and eerie.  The sun had come out by the time we got to Widemouth Bay but it was still raining, although only lightly by now.

Finn had a good run and a swim - albeit in the rock pools and not the sea.  I think it was too choppy, even for Finn.   It's such a dramatic stretch of coastline up here - very rugged - and the beaches go on for miles.   Dogs are only allowed on the beaches from October to April, which is what determines when we take our holidays.  But Widemouth always seems to be busy - the last time we were here was in November 2012, but there were always plenty of people about, even at that time of the year.  

After an hour or so, I was getting pretty cold, although Finn was showing no sign of giving up.  So I bundled him into the car and we drove to Crackington Haven.  By this time, the rain had stopped and it was warm enough to actually sit on the beach - although I was wearing quite a few layers as it wasn't that warm!

I could have stayed here forever, but the beach was beginning to fill up with lots of other dogs - which wasn't a problem, but they were all teeny tiny dogs and Finn is such a bully!   He loves small dogs and they seem to like him too, but I never feel totally comfortable - he can be a wee bit unpredictable sometimes, so it's best to keep them all apart.  Besides, he'd run around for hours by then and I wanted a cream tea!   There are two beach cafes at Crackington and we generally go to the one just behind the pub - it was getting colder, but just warm enough to sit out and have a coffee and scones, before manhandling Finn back into the car - he really didn't want to go! - and buying a couple of Cornish pasties to transport back to Heathrow for mine and Andy's tea the following evening.  

Such a lovely week - as always - I could quite easily move down here.  It's such a long way to drive from Norwich, or even Heathrow, but always totally worth it.