Friday, September 28, 2012

Llawnroc - September 2012

We had a beautiful weeks vacation, staying at Llawnroc, in Widemouth Bay.

The bay is stunning, with sandy beaches, cliffs and rock pools, a child's heaven. The surfing is good too, with a surf school at each end of the beach, although this late in the season, the one our end was shut.

There is a cafe next door to the complex, providing hot and cold drinks, sandwiches and ice cream, this is open every day until the half term holidays, then only weekends; you can even buy a bucket and spade.

Fishing in Widemouth Bay
We have a Jack Russell, and she loved the beach, so many things to sniff, lots of other dogs to play with, it is defiantly a dog friendly beach, plus there are coastal walks in both directions, by the end of the day the mutt should be knackered.

If you are a fisherman, again you have the sport here, straight on the beach, I found the best time was low tide, using mackerel. You can also go to the breakwater in Bude where there is also good fishing, although I was quite happy just to grab my rod and a bucket, then meander down to the beach for a couple of hours every day.

Now for the house, it is simply stunning, two double bedrooms, one twin and a bunk bed room that sleeps four, the house sleeps a total of ten, each room has it's own en suite shower/toilet and there is an extra loo under the stairs. Three of the bedrooms are on the ground floor, with the bunk bed room, kitchen/diner and lounge area upstairs where the views are best. Everything has been well thought out about the house, the showers were massive, not poky little things stuffed in as an afterthought, there were two iPod docks, one on the amp and one on the wall, speakers were set into the ceiling, it was all very 'modern'. The only drawback, was the access to the rear garden was via one of the bedrooms, but I could live with that. If you want more information about the house visit Elite West Holidays.

It was great having my family around me, it is not often that we all come together and I really cherish these moments. The thing that kept us sane was the WiFi (phone coverage was rubbish), the Sky (in most of the bedrooms as well as the lounge) and the XBox, gone are the days when you sit round the table and play board games, interactive is the way to go.

I was also impressed by the management company, we had a really bad storm one day and that knocked out the Sky, I made a call, left a message on the answer phone, and it was repaired the next day.

Lynne loved the kitchen, the only thing missing was a whisk, easily resolved with our first trip to Morrisons in Bude, so we didn't eat out at all, preferring to site down as a family and chat, James and Serena cooked a Superb Korma, Simon and Faye a great (I mean that in both ways) pasta bake with meatballs; it was really refreshing to be waited on by my kids.

This is our last night, we are off up to the Bay View Inn for us tea, we don't want to cook on the last night, no tidying up needed...

The Bay View Inn is packed, we managed to get the last table, would recommend reserving a table next time. Food was good, service a tad slow, probably because it was packed to the gunnels...

 

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Fishing at Widemouth Bay

So my son, James, has taken up the sea fishing habit, living in Brixham it is the perfect place to take up this sport, and like any supporting father, I have had to have a go.

A week's holiday in Widemouth Bay, together with James, gave me the perfect opportunity to try out sea fishing (instead of the normal course fishing that I enjoy).

There seems to be a lot of science in this sport, you need to know the habits of the fish, understand tide tables, where the best place to cast is, what bait to use etc., local knowledge is a must, which is why it was quite fortunate that I got chatting with the attendant of the beach car park, he had a wealth of knowledge about fishing on this beach.

So, from the word of the 'expert', at high tide, this time of year (late September), there should be Bass about, and at low tide, the Skate make an appearance.

Suffice to say, that I have now fished this beach at high tide, low tide, with the tide coming in, with the tide going out; I have used ragworm (not recommended by said parking attendant), mackerel and sand eel; all to no avail, not even a bite although a couple of 'knocks' as they say in the trade.

My only assumption is, that there are no fish in Widemouth Bay at the end of September - fours days fishing and nothing to show for it apart from water logged wellies!

 

 

Addendum

There seems to be at least one fish in the bay, this bass, about 1.5lb, was caught at low tide after about an hour and a half in the cold wind. Five days, one fish; Lynne says "I am a crap hunter gatherer".