Beach and camping trip to West Wittering

It feels like a long time ago now, but at the end of May we went camping on the south coast, and enjoyed a fabulous week of sunshine - days playing at the beach, and evenings drinking and playing cards around the campfire! It was the perfect opportunity to switch off the phones, step back from emails and social media and just enjoy time with family and friends.

We stayed at Nunnington Farm Campsite in West Wittering which is a fantastic place and I would highly recommend it. None of the campsites in the area take advance bookings but our two family groups arrived on the Tuesday after the Bank Holiday and were able to get pitches next to each other with no problem. It filled up towards the end of the week but never felt noisy or crowded, although we were lucky enough to be on the other side of the site to the children's play area!

The campsite is a family business, and has a lovely little farm which every morning offered children the opportunity to go over and feed the animals (and poo pick and braid the ponies tails!). The owner gave an amusing and informative talk to teach youngsters (and adults) about the characters they had, including alpacas, donkeys, sheep, cows, horses, pigs and chickens. It was lovely!

The campsite was also within walking distance of the beautiful, blue-flag, sandy beach at West Wittering, although with three children and two dogs we ended up driving, purely for the ease of transporting so much stuff! Including the lovely inflatable unicorn which you may have seen in the photo at the top of this blog post - what can I say, awesome.

The sea went out for miles so it was quite a trek for those who braved the water for body-boarding, but the sand was perfect for digging holes, and creating sandcastle and mermaids! We spent several of the days just enjoying time at the beach, as well as making a trip along the coast to Bognor Regis to play on the 2p machines on the pier and let our sunburned skin recover a little.

Night-time adventures are a must when camping, and we spent the evenings playing cards, telling ghost stories, making smores and popcorn on the campfire/bbq and taking the dogs for walks with our torches.

It was a great opportunity to test out some of the fab lights and lanterns that I received as part of the Outdoor Bloggers weekend with VARTA earlier in the year. The little outdoor sports lanterns are really handy for hanging in the tent to help illuminate things, or you can put them on the table to create a lovely glow in the evening (or take Instagrammable photos!). James has one of the huge LED High Optics 3C torches which give off a powerful beam as you can see in the photo above - great for serious night-time adventures - and you can also see the girls wearing their headtorches. VARTA do a fun Paul the Bear headtorch for children which is shaped like a bear, and you press his nose to turn on and off!

I had such a chilled week and really enjoyed getting to know James' friends, and E, a little better. I will admit I was a bit nervous about going away with another family - and people that he knows so well - but it was lovely. I'm coming across a lot of new experiences in my current situation, but bonding over a love of camping and the outdoors (and ice cream) seems to bring everyone together!

Have you been camping recently?