We love exploring the UK and regularly write about the places we’ve visited. I love to show people that there are so many places right on our doorstep. Parkdean Resorts got in contact with me as part of their Best of Britain campaign to help discover some of the best family days out in Newquay. Kev and I visited Newquay quite a few years ago when we had not long been together. It was a fun weekend but being the age I was, I never appreciated what a beautiful part of the country it was, I do now!
Short Breaks
We love short breaks as it means we can visit places over the weekends, making the accommodation prices cheaper and we can visit different places more often throughout the year. You will be surprised how much you can fit in when it’s well planned out!
Top Tip – If your kids are school age, look ahead in the school calendar for inset days on Mondays and Fridays. It means you can head off early or make the most of the Monday on the way home.
We stayed at Holywell Bay Holiday Park with Parkdean Resorts and the biggest feature of this park to us is that the beach is a very easy 10-minute walk directly from the park and an outside pool.
Exploring Newquay
I was so excited to go back to Newquay, whilst researching the area I was overwhelmed by how many beautiful places there are to visit in Cornwall. Endless sandy beaches with cute beach villages to stop in. My happy place is at the beach, I visit the beach throughout the year, whether it’s raining, freezing cold or beautiful sunshine. My girls have inherited this trait from me, and love it on the beach.
I whittled down my favourite places to visit, so I hope you love them just as much as we do.
West Pentire
After arriving at Holywell Bay we unpacked and needed to get out and explore. I love to have dinner on the beach with the kids. So we cooked up some sausages and wrapped them up to take to them out with us. After being stuck in the car the kids were more than happy to run off some steam too.
West Pentire is about a 10-minute drive from Holywell Bay and with two large car parks, it’s easy to park. On the walk to the beach, we were greeted by a field of Poppies!
West Pentire is a clifftop area overlooking Polly Joke Beach and Crantock beach with fields of wildflowers that explode with colour in the early summer. You can walk all around this cliff top through the fields, but we wanted the beach today!
Polly Joke Beach
I was given this suggestion to visit Polly Joke Beach by Rachel at The Little Pip and I am so glad we visited. You follow the path down the cliff to find a quiet beach with a cove.
The weather was lovely on the day we visited, which meant the water was beautifully warm, so the children loved playing in the water, and I can only imagine how lovely this water would be in the summer months.
The sun was setting behind the cliff, so pick your position on the beach well! It very quickly starts to shade the beach areas. I suggest you sit on the right-hand side as you can watch the sun setting over the horizon. My son adored this and sat on the rocks taking it in.
Newquay
After a well-needed sleep, we headed off to explore Newquay Harbour. We parked in Manor Road car park which is about a 5-minute walk from Newquay front, and very easy to find.
Newquay Treasure Trails
I came across a website that creates Treasure Trails for all different areas over the UK for children and adults to take part in. You purchase a treasure trails map from them for £6.99 and you have to follow the clues and directions to take you around the area to solve the mystery. The clues are all based on existing buildings, statues, artwork and shops in the area.
We thought this would be a great idea to get us looking all around Newquay and give the children something interesting to follow.
The trail said it would take about 2 hours, but it was taking longer than this for us (easily distracted!) so we didn’t get to complete it all as we wanted to fit more activities in. However I think they’re a brilliant idea and really gives the kids something else to do and interact with the area, whilst exploring somewhere new.
Newquay Beach
When we walked down towards the beach, we were blown away by how blue and clear the water was, just look at this!
The kids just stopped and took it all in, they had never seen a beach that blue before and I must admit our beach near us won’t ever look the same now!
Newquay has just a lovely feeling about it, everyone is friendly and the hustle and bustle of all the activities going on are great to watch. There are so many different water sports you can take part in, plenty of places for hiring out the equipment too. We even saw a guy with water-powered boots on!
Down at the front, you will also find a Blue Reef Aquarium and when we visited years ago there were seals on the rocks, so do keep an eye out for them wherever you go. Today we just found a massive Newfoundland dog that just looked like a giant teddy bear!
Newquay Amusements and Shops
Newquay town is right on the beach front, little roads filled up with rows and rows of shops. There is so much to see here and lots of lovely places to eat. We can’t visit a seaside town without having a go on the 2p machines!
This is a childhood memory of mine, and now my kids love them too! They all managed to get a little prize too.
Then we found a little souvenir shop, the girls wanted to buy their friends a little gift and these type of shops are perfect for that.
We also had to get a stick of rock, which has to be a seaside tradition too!
Newquay Harbour
We walked down to Newquay Harbour which is picture perfect, little boats all lined up and lots of people taking part in watersports. It’s such a fun place to visit!
As the tide was out we could walk across the beach to a little set of steps up the rocks, I think little things like this kids adore. It took us back up the rocks and along the cliff top walk. It was at this point I was wishing I had packed my walking boots, it would have given me the much-needed support on these rocks!
This is where you can take in the view and where you can see all the different beaches along the coastline. I wanted to visit them all!
Huer’s Hut
From Newquay beach we could see a little white building right at the top of the cliff, this was our destination point! It looked really far away but once you followed the path along and all the interesting things to see, it wasn’t at all.
Huer’s hut is a small round white building which sits high upon the hill, this grade II listed building was once used back in the 14th century as a lookout by a huer. A huer’s job was to watch for the telltale signs of pilchard shoals and then alert the fishermen back at the harbour to their arrival.
He would then shout ‘Havva, Havva!’ (Here they are) so they would drop everything to return to the harbour. It was a stunning view, very windy but well worth the walk up there. Just around the corner from this is Fistral Beach which is one of the best surfing beaches in Newquay.
Cornish Pasties
From the moment my son arrived in Newquay and he saw a beach hut on the front with ‘The Best Cornish Pasties In The UK’ on it, we had to have that for lunch, didn’t we!
A lovely end to a lovely morning. We would happily visit Newquay beach and harbour again, there is just so much to see and do there and such a lovely feeling there.
Holywell Beach
After lunch, we headed back to the caravan to get on our shorts, pick up the swimsuits and head down to the beach. It’s so nice to have a beach walking distance from where you’re staying too.
I didn’t know what to expect from Holywell Beach, but I didn’t realise it was so big! I suggest you bring some bodyboards, not just for taking in the water but for going down the sand dunes!!
Holywell Bay beach is a stunning beach, it’s really big with sand dunes and cliffs surrounding it, and near the front of it is a little shallow water area which is perfect for the younger ones to paddle in without the waves to worry about.
Due to the large mining history in Newquay, there are so many caves in the cliffs which the children loved exploring as we don’t come across them in our area. It’s so great to be able to show them places like this, teach them the history and see them taking it all in.
Holywell Bay School Of Surf
Whilst researching what there was to do in the area, I came across a surf school that was on the Holywell Bay beach. My girls jumped at the chance of having a surfing lesson whilst we were away. What a great opportunity for them and I was so proud of them wanting to give this a go.
Priced at £30 per person for 2.5 hours lesson I didn’t think that was bad at all. When we arrived you needed to find the large hut looking out over the beach. The girls were a bit nervous but once they were out chatting to the instructor he made them laugh and put them at ease.
They look adorable walking across the beach with the large surfboard and all kitted out in their wetsuits (which are included in your lesson price)
Having never done anything like this before I wasn’t sure how they would get on, but they loved it. They learnt how to ‘ride the waves’ on their tummies and had smiles beaming from ear to ear the whole time.
We stayed up on the dry sand area which was quite far away from them but I could hear them laughing so much! He did try to get them up on their feet and stand but it was a bit much for them, but they didn’t care!
I highly recommend Holywell Bay School Of Surf if you want a surfing lesson.
Knowing the weather was going to change the next day, we all went back to Holywell Bay Holiday Park and went for a swim in their outdoor swimming pool to finish the day off. We were all exhausted afterwards and slept so well that night!
Bedruthan Steps
What a difference a day makes! The weather wasn’t as good as yesterday, but not as bad as it was expected to be. So we headed out on our normal plan to visit Bedruthan Steps. We’re National Trust members so we can make use of the car parks but we got confused on this one! Make sure you park at Carnewas at Bedruthan as here you will find a cafe, nice car park, toilets and information on the area.
I have wanted to visit Bedruthan Steps for so long. It sounded and looked amazing but I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like in the rain! Well, I wasn’t disappointed. We think it was even more dramatic than it would have been on a sunny blue sky day. You just have to find them!
We were busy taking in the cliff top views and looking down the fallen rocks down below, that we missed the small opening in the cliff top which was gated and had 120 steps down to the beach!
We were very lucky and we visited when the tide was going out and we could walk down them all to get to the amazing beach below. These steps are slippery, small, wonky and steep, so go careful!
When we got down onto the beach there were massive caves to explore! We could see some light at the end of the cave which led through to another beach, we didn’t have the guts to explore it with the children but what an adventure with them if we did!
What you need to be aware of with Bedruthan Steps is that when the tide comes in the beach goes and the only way out is up the 120 steps! But the beach disappears much before high tide as well! So be very very aware of this.
The beach sand was like walking on marshmallows, the kids were sinking into it, bouncing on it and by the time we had left they had made a beautiful pattern all over it! It was pristine before they came along!
This beach was so interesting and we spent quite a while just playing on it and exploring, we didn’t go far either but they all loved it. We even forgot it was raining and made some very happy memories.
We then went back to Holywell Bay Holiday Park and the kids went in the outdoor pool…..yes it is even open when it’s cold and raining! The kids said it was lovely and warm!!
Eden Project
I mentioned to my son that the Eden Project is about 40 minutes away from the Holywell Bay Holiday Park and he was so keen to visit. He had heard so much about it, so we stopped off on the way back home.
When I was staying at some Newquay holiday cottages when I was younger, I visited the Eden Project when it hadn’t long opened and everything was very empty, it was so nice to visit again and to see it all grown and established. The Eden Project has two large biomes which are planted up to show the different climates and environments.
Rainforest Biomes
Mediterranean Biomes
Within these biomes, they teach you all about our planet and the environments which these plants grow in. It’s very hot in the rainforest one but they do have a cooling off room half way around! Keep an eye out for the animals too, they’ve brought in some to help with the natural habitat and to keep on top of the ants!
The children enjoyed reading the different plaques as the Eden Project make them fun and interesting to read.
They also enjoyed seeing the plants that make our rice, rubber, bananas, Coca Cola and lots of other items we enjoy in our lifestyles. Places like this are perfect for kids to learn in a fun interactive way about our world and they had lots of fun in the cloud!
My daughter was fascinated with the Rainforest Leaves which are placed along the walkway in the rainforest canopy. For £200 you can have one of these made with a message on, what a beautiful idea.
We finished our day off by visiting the invisible world building, what a fun building it is! One of the first things you come across is the large blue thing puffing out cloud rings!
Three billion years ago the cyanobacteria started to produce oxygen, its distant descendants are found in plants and phytoplankton and provide the oxygen we breathe in. Without them, we wouldn’t be here, so artist duo Studio Swine wanted to build a monument to these vital but invisible unsung heroes, and produced this!
All the children loved this, running around waiting for it to puff out one of the rings so they can catch one, it’s a brilliant idea! Check out my video to see it working!
After spending about 4 hours here, we headed back home after a wonderful weekend. Next time I fancy a little bit of family adventure fun at Camel Creek!
Best Of Britain
I think I found some of the Best Of Britain on our weekend in Cornwall and I hope you loved the places we visited. Let me know if you visit them.
Parkdean Resorts are sharing lots of places over the UK that we find on our trips, so head over and take a look at even more places in the UK to visit and don’t forget to use #BestOfBritain when you find something special in the UK.
Head over to my Instagram stories to watch what we got up to over there!
Video Of Our Trip
Holiday At Holywell Bay Holiday Park
We stayed at Holywell Bay Holiday Park with Parkdean Resorts which was a perfect location to visit all of these places. We picked this holiday park due to it’s close proximity to the beaches, but it came with the added bonus of an outdoor swimming pool!
The site was so clean and well maintained, with a really lovely feeling about it tucked down in a bowl away from everything. It was super peaceful and I would love to visit here again.
*We were invited along to Holywell Bay Holiday Park by Parkdean Resorts
42 Comments
Awww we lovely Newquay, many a happy holiday there and hopefully many more to come! Lovely pics x
Thank you, brilliant place isn’t it.
Looks like a beautiful part of the country and I can’t believe how many things you managed to see and do! What a jam packed trip away!
Its so beautiful, yes we managed to fit so much in didn’t we! But it was all so close together so we could tick lots off
Wow, your trip looks so much fun and just such a beautiful place!
Very beautiful isn’t it
I absolutely love Newquay, it’s one of my favourite parts of the country. Your photos are stunning! x
Thank you, it’s a stunning part of the country. I can’t wait to explore more of the UK
Wonderful photos Steph! Never seen that island with the house and the bridge before, total awesomeness. As I’m not English to me, where ever we go, it always feel like I’m a tourist and I believe for the children it’s very important to discover their country first. It’s so beautiful!
There are so many beautiful places isn’t there to find, the island with the bridge over was fascinating! Imagine living there!
I love Newquay – we went a few times when my daughter was younger but have only been back to other parts of Cornwall since and you’re reminding me how lovely it is. She was too young for Bedruthan Steps last time so that is definitely on my list! Gorgeous photos.
The kids loved walking down those steps to a secret beach!
Amazing blog post!!! I want to go back to Cornwall now. The sea in those photos looks incredible, like you are arbroad somewhere! I really want to go to the Eden Project and I could totally eat a Cornish pasty right about now xx
Ah thanks, it’s a very beautiful place to picture and explore
We keep saying that we need to visit Cornwall with the children, it looks such a beautiful place to visit
It’s so beautiful there, so much for the kids to explore
Awesome photos, we love Newquay, especially when the weather is as good as it has been!
It makes everything so much easier when the weather is lovely doesn’t it
What a beautiful place. I am seriously loving the views here.
They blew me away!
Oh wow what amazing pictures. It looks and sounds like you all had an amazing time. I’ve never been to Newquay but definitely want to go now!!
Oh yes you should visit Newquay, so much to do there
We love exploring ! Looks like you’ve had an amazing weekend . You’ve captured some beautiful photos x
Thanks! So many places to explore in this country isn’t there
The Cornish coast is so beautiful, the sea looks amazing! Plus loving all of those poppy pictures, I would love to head back to Cornwall soon!
The sea was amazing, I couldn’t get over how blue and beautiful it was
Gosh, it looks like you had a really super time and managed to fit loads in! Your photos are absolutely stunning!
Thank you very much, I was surprised how much we fitted in too!
Looks like you had a great time. I love Newquay and there’s some great tips here. The pictures are stunning too x
Thank you very much, lots of places to explore in Newquay
I love Cornwall and would love to explore more. It looks like you had a great time.
There are so many places to explore in Cornwall, beaches at every corner!
Wow looks like you had a fantastic time. So much to see and do around the area. You photos are stunning
Thank you, it was a really lovely weekend
I’ve never been to Newquay but I’ve heard of the Treasure Trails. I think there’s a couple for Edinburgh, I keep meaning to check it out.
Their a great idea, gets you really exploring the area
I always admire those places with this kind of view, I just love peaceful atmosphere and I think this place has it
Yes it was peaceful but also had lots of places that more lively if you wanted that.
We love Cornwall. There is so much to see and it is just a beautiful county. Newquay is great for the kids!
A beautiful part of the UK isn’t it, so much to do in the area and so many places to explore
Firstly, can I come with you on your next trip! Honestly your photos are amazing ! I feel like I could just dive in there with you guys ! Secondly I love the idea of weekends away ,we too do quite a few as we look for accessible places to visit. The beach looks absolutely out of this world !
Ah thanks! The area was stunning, so many amazing places to explore there. It felt like we were abroad!