During the summer, we both usually try and take a trip down to Cornwall for a few days or a long weekend, pitching a tent at a local campsite.
We've managed to get down on a couple of occassions now, in 2001 to Penzance and in 2002 to Newquay.
We travelled to Penzance in 2001 so we could take our Advanced Open Water Diver training course. We stayed at a campsite near to Penzance and to our Dive Centre, Undersea Adventures. It was our first experience of diving in British waters, and found it totally different to the experience of diving in warmer climates, though just as enjoyable. We had our very own instructor (Rick) and divemaster (Brian) for just the two of us and we had a total of five dives including our first two beach dives. We had a great time and would thoroughly recommend Undersea Adventures to anyone wanting to try British diving.
It was Kirsty's first real trip to Cornwall so, as well as our diving, we took a trip to Perranporth, (a beach resort where Rich spent many years as a child) where we enjoyed the most unbelievable fish and chip dinner you could imagine and took a trip down to Lands End!
The main idea behind our second trip to Cornwall in 2002, was so that we could try out our new wetsuits that we had bought for our scuba diving trip to Cornwall. It was an ideal opportunity to try them whilst we did a bit of bodyboarding, which is why we chose Newquay as our destination (the English home of surfing!) The water was freezing, but our suits felt lovely and warm and we enjoyed a couple of days of boarding in the sunshine!
Apart from our boarding, we took another trip to Perranporth, had a BIG barbeque outside our tent and took a trip to the lovely picturesque harbour of Padstow.
The weather was pretty mixed with the first day (and luckily BBQ) being gorgeous. Our second-hand, "on its last legs" tent took a bit of a battering on the last night and we were fortunate only to escape with a bit of tent leakage!
We decided that next year we should invest in a new tent and so the old fully worn out one was finally "retired" from service!
