Exploring the beach in Tenby, South Wales

If you’re looking for a staycation, Pembrokeshire is always a winner. Having camped in South Wales as a child, we headed there as a family recently for a long weekend with friends. Of course the heavens opened on our first day but that wasn’t going to stop us exploring or having fun. We’ve already posted about our boat trip around Skomer Island, where we saw hundreds of puffins and lots of seals, so here’s a nose at the seaside town of Tenby.

This little harbour is renowned for its colourful buildings and we saw them as soon as we headed down the steps to the South Beach. The 7 of us decided to have a look around there before heading into the town to have a look around and grab some lunch. Of course the 3 kids were straight in the water – POD so thrilled to be there she ran into the waves without taking her trainers off. Our fault really for not putting on her wellies or Crocs on beforehand but the brain obviously wasn’t in gear. The beach was deserted when we arrived there (who doesn’t love an empty beach!) although we did see an ambitious ice-cream van clearly waiting for the masses to appear! Covered in sand and with an abundance of shells in hands, we headed off to check out Tenby town – and find barefooted POD something to wear on her feet. Huge parent fail forgetting to bring more than one pair to the beach with us. Especially when she had such a range of footwear in Wales with her!

Tenby is steeped in ancient history and the town is surrounded by a medieval stone wall. It’s a delightful town with a wealth of places to shop, eat and drink, we were quite spoilt for choice on the food front. Finding some cheap footwear and socks for POD was more of a challenge but we did find a pair of cheap silver slip ons! They only needed to last her the rest of the day so they did the job. After we’d filled our bellies with a carb fuelled lunch, we headed back down to the beach with spades in hand for sandcastle building.

Of course it was busier when we returned but the South Beach is huge so it really didn’t matter. There was a lack of water around the moat of the first sandcastle the children built so we moved towards a large barnacle covered rock where there was a little stream. There was so much water in fact, it was necessary to build a dam so the castle didn’t disappear! The children spent hours barefoot in the sand, continuing their building and adding water (not that it needed it) to their creation. The final touches included adding a Welsh flag to the top and just before we left, decorating it with seashells.

The kids all had an absolute ball on the South Beach in Tenby, the only tears when POD inevitably dropped her ice-cream cone in the sand! We got her another one though so she was back to her perky self before long. She got to see a decent sized crab on the beach too, thanks to a local who clearly knew how to handle crabs without being nipped. We also found a crocodile another family had made out of sand which was almost as impressive. It was a great first day and the sun came out for us too which is always a bonus.

We’ll be sharing more photographs from our Wales adventure very soon – in particular the beach I visited as I child which is largely the same. In the meantime, do check out our boat trip around Skomer Island. Never have I seen so many puffins on the rocks and in the water. It was amazing to see all the seals too. Such wonderful creatures they really are.