Get ready for a half-term holiday in ‘Haven’

 
I’ve written about Haven previously for Mums and Dads, the first time about Haggerston Castle and the second time about Lakeland. Both locations were amazing, with the fantastic Northumberland Coast at the former and the famous Lake District at the latter. But for our kids the big attraction has never been the location but the camps themselves.

Harrison, now aged nine, fell in love with Anxious the Elephant when he was five and both he and Ella could never get enough of the night-time entertainment on camps, wanting to dance the night away and having to be literally carried away when it was their bedtime. And of course they thoroughly enjoyed pumping all my hard earned money into the arcade machines.

So I was a little unsure how they were going to find being on camp while COVID restrictions still hadn’t been fully lifted (we stayed for the first weekend in May). Would they be upset that there was no night-time entertainment, possibly no Anxious the Elephant, and definitely no arcades?

No.

From the moment we pulled up to our mid-range Deluxe, dog-friendly, caravan the kids were in heaven. They eagerly explored every nook and cranny of the three bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen and modern living room. I’m not sure what they were looking for exactly but they had plenty of fun rummaging around. And then they were off outside, enjoying being able to freely run around and explore our corner of the camp, which happened to have a playground within sight of the living room window.
 
The great thing about campsites for the kids is that they’re allowed a bit more freedom than they are at home. We feel confident about letting them run around unsupervised (within reason) and letting them make new friends with the other children who were kicking their footballs around and riding their bikes and scooters on the safe roads.

Both Harrison and Ella have Hoverboards, that they are only allowed to use in the garden back home, so they loved being able to whizz around with their new friends in the large grassed areas behind the caravan too. They were having so much fun that they weren’t happy about us walking to the nearby beach at Thornwick Bay…until they got there that is. I’m convinced that at least one of them will be a geologist when they grow up, as their love of pebbles and rocks borders on obsessive. So after moaning about having to go to the beach we ended up staying there for three hours, in temperatures that were unseasonably frigid, thanks to a cold snap.

Still Harrison and Ella didn’t seem to notice the temperature. I don’t think they even noticed the stunning limestones cliffs that hug each side of the bay either, or the thousands of seabirds, including puffins that were busy bringing fish to their chicks all around us. They were far too immersed in pebble collecting.

This part of the Yorkshire coast isn’t just great for seeing seabirds though, it’s perfect territory for crabbing, so the following day we returned to the beach while the tide was out and dangled our lines into one of the many rock pools that forms at low tide. To our left we saw a family pulling one crab after another out with their line, while we had no success whatsoever. When the other family had finally had enough of pulling them from their pool we decided to try it ourselves. Again no luck, but it turns out bacon is far more tempting to crabs than chicken.

The kids were getting restless, they wanted to explore the caves instead.

I know this area from years of visits as a child, and so I attempted to persuade them that we should walk along the cliffs for ten minutes and look at the caves at North Landing instead. Harrison grumbled about this and Ella said something about walks being boring, but in the end I got my way and once again they were in heaven when we arrived. If you’ve ever been to North Landing at Flamborough you’ll know what I mean. There’s a reason there are so many plaques with names of departed loved ones here, because it’s one of the most beloved spots on the east coast. The sea caves alone are worth a visit, but the sheltered waters are also great for paddling and the beach is a delightful combination of sand and pebbles. There are even the remains of a shipwreck here. We found two rusted panels in the first half hour alone.

We could quite easily have stayed at the beach all day but we had junior Segways sessions booked for 2pm and a pool session at 3:45pm. So for once the kids didn’t have to be forced to move from the beach, because they’d been dying to try out the junior Segways since we’d booked the trip. They’re a great introduction to hoverboards and Harrison had tried them previously at Lakeland.

At exactly 1m20 Ella was big enough to try them this time too, and from the moment she mounted the board she was hooked. The session was supposed to last for 30 minutes but ended up being 40 minutes. It’s well worth the £12, especially if your child has shown an interest in getting a hoverboard.

All Havens have an Activity Barn, which is where many of the activities take place. Ella has always adored the arts and crafts sessions that run in the barns, but at the time of our visit indoor activities were still restricted. Most of the outdoor activities were still on, like den building, football coaching, bike hire and learn to cycle, bush crafts and fire lighting techniques. But our two preferred romping around the camp on their hoverboards and playing tennis on the large green behind the caravan.

One indoor activity that was still open was the swimming pool, of which Thornwick Bay has three, in one complex. However the waterslides were closed until May 17th so we weren’t able to try those. Likewise the water activities that both our kids have grown to love in Haven over the last few years were also unavailable until we’re further along the roadmap out of lockdown. Harrison has been desperate to give the underwater scooters a go, now that he’s finally old enough to, but he understood the reasons he’d have to wait unto the next time we visit.

They were just happy to be in the water, splashing around as though life was relatively normal again. And in some ways the pool is better with the restrictions, as the amount of people let in was limited with one hour slots being assigned. This meant there was a seamless entry to the water, with no waiting for lockers or changing rooms and plenty of room in the pools to do lengths if you wanted to.

There was one reason I wish we’d visited after May 17th though, and that was the pub/restaurant, where we ate on two of our three nights. The food was lovely, but sitting in a marquee – albeit with heaters strategically placed every couple of meters – isn’t the same as being inside. Not when the weather never got above 10 degrees the whole time we were there anyway. But we did time our visit for the coldest May 1st in 100 years!

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