Rock Pooling at Shell Island.

Mine and Ed's latest adventure was to Shell Island over the bank holiday weekend. And it was the worst camping expedition we have had yet! The camp site on Shell Island boasts that it is the largest in Europe and they do not allocate pitches, but unfortunately that is where the positives end. The facilities were really dirty, it was one of those places where you are hyper-vigilant that no part of your trouser legs sweep the floor when approaching the porcelain thrown! The toilet paper also ran out frequently, the washing up area was strewn with icky food scraps, and the Magnum ice creams cost £1.80 each! It was god awful. Not only that but the camp site seemed to be full of boy racers and wife beater top wearing, scary dog owners (you get my drift). It was one of those camp sites where I felt a little uncomfortable leaving my few valuables, I travel with, stowed away in Doris. 

The weather reflected my mood, and was grey and rainy nearly the whole time we were there. Ed and I had planned to stay for 3 nights, but we decided to cut our losses after 2. On chatting to some other campervaners there are stories of riot vans and shootings at this camp site in the past! So if for some reason you are tempted by camping at Shell Island, just keep in mind that Ed rebranded this place Hell Island. 

The only up side to this whole camping fiasco was that there are some super cool rock pools at this place (if you can try and ignore the litter strewn at the edge of the beech). I haven't been rock pooling for a really long time so I was excited. I had such a fun time it didn't even upset me when Ed broke my net after about 10 minutes of him using it (I think this camping trip was slightly doomed).  

Ed and I caught shrimps mainly, we found a crab trying to hide in the sand, I saved a starfish that had managed to get washed onto the beech upside down and we spotted loads of sea anemones, which are one of my favourite creatures ever! It was Ed's first time seeing them in the wild, so it was a pretty awesome few hours spent amongst the rocks and the sea water. It started to rain again so we headed back to Doris to drink tea and play iPad scrabble. Here is to the next more successful camping trip!

Hope you had enjoyable bank holiday adventures! 

Much Love.

Kirst x  

Adventures at Powys Castle.

As Ed and I are visiting my folks for the weekend. The sunshine was too good too miss yesterday and so we decided we were well overdue an adventure. All of us trekked out over the Welsh border to Powys Castle, I have wanted to go here for a while so I was super excited to be flexing my National Trust membership for the first time this year. We decided to peruse around the gardens and leave looking around the castle for another time. The gardens are absolutely amazing, there are the wild, unkempt parts flanked with luscious meadows heaving with buttercups which then leads onto the manicured, baroque gardens and terraces. 

As we were heading towards the car park I couldn't resist looking at the plants for sale, and to my surprise there was a peacock in amongst the herbs. He seemed to be rather enjoying all the attention in front of the camera. It is amazing how large and stunning these birds are, and a little scary when they start yelping away. 

I had such an awesome day out in the sunshine, I hope you have had a wonderful summery weekend <3

Much Love
Kirst x