Tidal Pools & Sand Castles

There's nothing quite like spending a Summer morning on a Californian beach. White sand, blue sky, scorching sun, beautiful people... 

Oh, wait a minute... that would Summer on a Southern Californian beach. Here in Northern California (or at least around the Bay Area) Summer at the beach means fog, jackets and beanies! Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I'm not a Summer fan at all. I much prefer going to the beach when it's cooler and atmospheric.

On our little trip to Big Sur and Monterey the girls were super keen to hit the beach. They didn't care what the weather was like, they just wanted to run on the sand, wade in the water, explore tidal pools and build sand castles. 

After breakfast we headed down to the beach; a short walk away from our room. For our stay at Asilomar I had booked a family package which came with a bag of beach toys for each of the girls, among other things. The girls were pretty excited about their new beach toys and couldn't wait to play with them.

First up though we decided to explore the beach a little. There were many rocky areas to explore and the girls were pretty excited to find small tidal pools. They were even more excited to discover that the tidal pools were full of life. Hermit crabs, tiny fish and plenty of spongy sea creatures that look like plants but are really animals. You know the type. 

Here's a little video of Ava showing us one of the tidal pools we found.

It was then time to start building sand castles. The girls enlisted Papa's help and got to work building their castles. While Papa did the hard work (most of the digging and tipping castles out of the molds) the girls collected all sorts of treasures that they found on the beach - feathers, seaweed, seedpods...They then used these to decorate their sand castles. Or to try and hypnotise Papa, as was the case with one particular seaweed pod thingy that Ava found!

The girls' packs of beach toys included a little sailboat each. They found a a little stream of water flowing across the beach and set their boats to sail. They also tested them out in the tidal pools.

While the big girls built sandcastles and explored tidal pools Mathilde slept snuggled up against me in her Boba wrap. This was the first visit to the beach for my little Californian girl. 

The girls would've happily stayed on the beach all day however it was soon time to check out of the hotel and head to Monterey to visit the aquarium. Leaving the beach can be hard for the girls (it's one of the things they miss the most about Australia) but knowing that they were heading to one of their most favourite places ever made it much easier.

Bye, bye beach. We had a fun time playing with you.