Dear mummy, what a difference a day makes! Yesterday it was a glorious sunny day on the South Coast of England reaching highs of 28 degrees! Today it is wet, miserable and muggy!
Our adventure yesterday started off well as we decided to head for the beach 1 hour & 20 minutes away, south of Chichester to a beach called West Wittering. We’d heard it was one of the best beaches around with white powdery sands and plenty of space to roam. We headed down the M3 motorway from Basingstoke at 10:30am with only light traffic stopping us at Eastleigh and carried on south past Portsmouth on the M27. This is a breeze my mummy thought!
It was only when we got closer to Chichester when our traffic troubles really started. On the small B-road to West Wittering the traffic was awful. We played I spy, sung the whole Frozen movie soundtrack, played with my mermaid and read books. We queued for over an hour and ended up a mile from the beach when we decided enough was enough and turned around to head home. Oh dear, none of us were in a very good mood. Luckily Daddy had a good idea about heading down the other peninsular to Hayling Island. Another big risk heading to a beach that only had one way in and one way out, but it paid off and within 20 minutes we could see the sea! 3 hours later we had reached our destination.
It’s not the best beach for building sand castles, not like the dunes and white sand we were hoping for at West Wittering, but it was perfectly adequate for a little paddle and a picnic.
Hayling Island Beach (West Beachlands) is a pebble beach and is very windy, so we unpacked our UV tent from BabyMoov and our thick wool blanket to stop the pebbles from hurting our bottoms while we sat down. The weather was glorious and even though we only spent 3hrs down there it seemed like we’d been at the beach all day! We were all very tired.
We ate pork pies and sandwiches and mummy even had a welcomed cider, after our long journey thanks to friends.
We made sand castles (well pebble and sand castles) and collected water in our buckets and cleaned our shells. My folks enjoyed watching all the wind surfers and the fishermen.
At one point I ran up the beach towards a fisherman to see what he was doing and my mummy had to run (sprint) after me to make sure I wasn’t up to mischief (or sabotage).
Hayling Island beach (West Beachlands) has a great restaurant & bar called ‘Inn on the Beach’ and the car parking can be paid for over the phone. They also have an ice cream kiosk and a small cafe on site with a skate board park and plenty of parking which overlooks the beach. No hilly climbs with young ones and it seemed quite safe underfoot. We couldn’t see any life guards though and would say it wasn’t overly safe for little ones to swim in due to the currents and the amount of windsurfers gliding up and down near the water’s edge.
A really pleasant couple of hours with the added bonus of seeing my grandparents and spending time with one of my little friends.
I think next time we plan to head to the beach we’ll leave at the crack of dawn!
West Wittering beach…we will come back and conqueror you!
Love Bella x
dearmummyblog.com 
I miss living by the coast, it looks like another wonderful weekend for your family, glad the weather was so good for your beach day xx
Yeah! It’s totally miserable now! Hope your back is ok and you are having a better week Em xx
Looks like a lovely weekend you all had. Lovely photos x
So sorry you had a horrid journey. We love West Wittering but are usually there by 830 in the mornings as the queues get really bad any later than that. It’s also a great idea to pack a BBQ and chill out on the grass as leaving between 4-6pm means sitting in a traffic queue as well! I’ve never been to Hayling Island but it looks nice, it will have to be on our list of places to go #countrykids
Thanks for the top tips..yep next time we’ll be there super early! 🙂
It looks like a fabulous family outing! I love it that you took the barbie/mermaid with you! That’s cool! #TwinklyTuesday
Angela from http://www.daysinbed.com
Mermaid even went into the sea! Eeeek she nearly swam away!
Gorgeous photo! Looks like you’ve had a fantastic weekend!
We had fun, thanks for popping over 🙂
Family day at the beach. These are always fun. great photo’s and thanks for sharing. 😉 #PointShoot
Lovely photos! Can’t believe the traffic but at least you got there! I love the sea 🙂 #pointshoot
Such fabulous pictures and I’m so glad things worked out for you in the end!xx
The good old English weather, ey! This pretty much sums up our holiday too. Lovely photos, glad you caught the good weather. #PointShoot
I think we caught the last of the summer!!! 🇬🇧☔️
I’m loving the pictures of your day on the beach. You can definitely tell you all had fun, even Barbie!
Lovely pictures, I love the wind surfers and mermaid in the bucket. The traffic sounds like a nightmare but it’s great that you came up with a plan B x
Looks like you had a fab day out. Nothing better than a day at the beach messing around
#twinklytuesday
I’ve never been to West Wittering but I have been to Hayling Island and it is lovely isn’t it? I’m glad it all turned out well for you in the end and it’s clear to see from your gorgeous photos that you all had a great day (including mermaid barbie!) 😉
Such a great write up and fab pics!
I didn’t realise you were to so close to me, I love Basingstoke, it’s only down the road! X X
#PointShoot
We are neighbouring bloggers! Thanks for popping over, must check your blog out more often xx
Looks like you all had a fun day! The beach looks quiet enough to be relaxing too – good bonus for the grown ups lol 🙂 #twinklytuesday
Debbie
http://www.myrandommusings.blogspot.com
Oh what a bummer that your day didn’t start off quite as planned but it looks like you had a fab day anyway! Sometimes it’s real fun to have a windy day on the beach 🙂 Thanks so much for linking up with #TwinklyTuesday
It’s a shame the journey there wasn’t great but your lovely day out made up for it. It’s surprising how tiring a few hours on the beach can be isn’t it?
It’s all that sea air! Thanks for popping over x
We love West Wittering, it does get packed though. I love it on a rainy day 🙂 Thanks for linking up to #PointShoot xx
It looks like a lovely day out at the beach, so much fun to be had! Lovely to have a picnic and paddle even if it’s not the best beach for sandcastles. But probably better than a packed beach anyway.
Thanks for linking up to #Whatevertheweather 🙂 x
The weather looks lovely, as are your photos 🙂 #whatevertheweather #countrykids
Wow what a lovely place and that weather is just perfect too. Sorry about the traffic though. This made me think of our journey tomorrow to go somewhere. I am so praying that it wont be bad! #WhateverTheWeather
Beautiful photos and looks like it was a lovely day for the beach! I’m hoping to visit the seaside soon and that looks like a great place to visit. #WhatevertheWeather
What beautiful pictures and a lovely fun day, despite the little diversion. It’s good that you still managed to make little sandcastles with the pebbles. What a yummy picnic! And it’s so good that Mummy had a well deserved cider! It’s amazing how tiring a trip to the beach can be, but it just shows that you had so much fun. Thank you for sharing your adventure on #whatevertheweather x