Last updated on 19 March 2025
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We went camping in Cornwall for a week this summer
Apparently camping in Cornwall is the done thing in England in the summer. We were among what seemed to be the entire population of England who decided that camping in Cornwall would be a good idea this year. And it was. It was a lot of fun, and the weather was mostly okay! It rained on and off from Sunday – Wednesday, but Thursday, Friday and Saturday were bright and sunny! I may have even managed to get a bit of a tan!
Saturday
Left Gloucester at about 10am and started what was supposed to be about a 3-4 hours drive, and arrived 5 and a half hours later at the camp site. Turns out when there’s a delay somewhere along the motorway…there’s a LONG delay. We set up our tents and sorted out everything we could.
The reason there’s a rabbit pegged on some rope is that I accidentally dropped my little sister’s bunny in the dog’s water bowl about half an hour after we got there. Oops! And of course, we had to claim our patch and put up a flag.
Sunday
On Sunday we ventured out to find a beach. That’s something we find really weird here. There are beaches everywhere along the Cornwall coasts, of course, and most of them are dog friendly, but all of them, no matter the popularity or the location have car parks that you have to pay for. And it’s expensive too!
Thankfully there was a car park empty on Sunday, so it was okay…but not on Thursday (I’ll get to that). In New Zealand, a car park at the beach is usually just a patch of grass nearby, or the actual beach itself. And you’d never pay for parking at the beach. Definitely a bit of shock!
Monday
On Monday it was quite wet, so we didn’t go to the beach, but we went into Newquay for a bit (famous for its surf – in fact, there was a big suffer music festival there while we were there, with people like Ed Sheeran there…but we couldn’t afford to go. It’s expensive as, man!) and looked around before heading back to camp for lunch. In the evening we went to a cliff that overlooks the sea and watched the sunset. And though it was quite freezing, the sky was beautiful and we discovered that England has the hugest slugs you will ever see!! SO GROSS! They are twice as long as fingers and thicker than a thumb and it’s just yucky…
Tuesday
Tuesday we went to a Cider farm which was really cool! As well as cider, they make juice and jam and things there and have lots of farm animals too that people can go and pat (not a novelty for us, because we had those animals right outside our doors at home – but cool all the same). We bought some Cider and headed home.
The rest of the afternoon was mostly spent reading books (I will post about all the books I read soon), and then after tea my sister got cabin fever and we had to get out of the campsite. We simply got into the car and drove around to see what we could find. We found this cool estuary with old broken boats in it.
Wednesday
Wednesday morning we headed to a Christian festival called the Creation Festival, just to check it out. Some of the speakers there were ones that my parents knew of, and the people we were camping with, but unfortunately they had already spoken. So really, we just looked around, took some pictures of a cute plane there and then went back to camp.
After lunch, we headed to another beach and built two sandcastles and watched them be destroyed by the waves. Lots of fun, and each sandcastle we built got better and better.
Thursday
Thursday was a beautiful day, so we went to the beach again, but we were going to go to another one, but when we got there there was a queue a mile long, so we drove to plan B. At plan B there was a queue too: they had a “one-out of the carpark, one-in” thing going on, so we were going to be there for ages. We bailed pretty quickly and ended up just at the one we had previously been to.
Friday
Saturday again
On Saturday we packed up our things and laughed at the dead grass under our tents and left the campsite. Though not before two frogs decided to show up. They were a bit dry, so we put them in Oscar’s water bowl before putting them in the bush.
The 3-4hour trip home took a grand total of 8.5hours due to an accident on the motorway, so it was backed up for hours and when we finally got off the motorway, the route we took home took us through Bristol and the long way home. So it was a long long day.
But that’s how we spent a week camping in Cornwall!
Have you ever camped in Cornwall before?
