A Tour of Felixstowe

My girlfriend and I joined my family for a traditional seaside break over the bank holiday weekend.

Day 1

We loaded up the car, ready to embark on our adventure. I made a mixtape for the journey so we all sung along in the car. We stopped at Newmarket Burger King on the way for dinner.

We arrived in good time but couldn’t get into the caravan park because we needed a fob that was in the caravan’s lockbox. Luckily, another family let us in. The caravan was lovely and clean and they had provided us with many essentials. It was a good home for the weekend and we gave it a high recommendation in the Airbnb review. We stayed here: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/24794795?s=51

After we had settled in we went for a walk to the sea which was just two minutes away. my little brother built a sandcastle and we all got slightly wet feet.

We then went to bed, having had enough excitement for one day.

Day 2

On the second day, we had decided to go shopping along the high street as Dad collects records and there are a lot of good charity shops in Felixstowe as well as a record shop.

First of all, we needed breakfast so we went on a walk to the docks where there is a lovely cafe that overlooks all the container ships being loaded up. On our walk, we saw a cat that had caught a squirrel.

We then drove into town and looked around all the shops. Everyone managed to buy something so that was a success. We stopped in Wimpy on the way back because we were starting to get a little hungry. Everyone wanted to try a DIY donut and a milkshake.

It had got quite late by that point and the car park was running out so we finished up the last couple of shops and went back to the caravan. For dinner, we ordered dominos and me and Dad went to collect it from the seafront. We started to play Monopoly (which I used to pronounce as Ponopoly on my very first caravan holiday) but got bored and watched A Dog’s Way Home instead. It was quite cheesy with the dog having a voiceover so we only gave it 7/10 on IMDb.

We then went back to the sea for another late night stroll before turning in for the night.

Day 3

Whilst shopping we saw an advert for a car boot sale at Felixstowe Academy so we woke up reasonably early and went there. It was Chelsea’s first car boot sale so she really enjoyed it. I got an old Polaroid camera for a pound.

As it was early we went to McDonald’s for breakfast, my favourite. I was feeling extra hungry so I had a breakfast wrap and bacon and cheese flatbread.

After our much-needed breakfast, we went to Lidl to get some essential supplies such as milk and sugar for tea back at the caravan.

We then went back into town for some things that we hadn’t managed to do on Saturday such as the weekend market and swimming.

On the way to the market, we stopped to get slushies. There was a really cool help yourself machine that Josh and Chelsea enjoyed using. They had a taste of every flavour.

Making Slushies

We had a wander around the market and there was a stall for everyone. There was a nice stall with llama and seaside souvenirs.

We went back into town ready to go swimming, however, it didn’t open until 1 so we sat on the beach for a while. Mum and Dad went off to have an affogato at The Little Ice Cream Co.

Affogato at The Little Ice Cream Co.
A rock foot on the beach

We were really hungry after swimming and I had always wanted to try the Fish Dish on the seafront. We went in and sat down, but they had a minimum spend that we didn’t really like. It wouldn’t let us order what we want and we felt forced, so we left again.

Whilst we were swimming, Mum and Dad had seen an American diner so we tried that. It was called Delphines and was lovely inside with 50s pastel colours, and large booths. It reminded Mum of Riverdale and us boys of a nuclear town. The milkshakes were delicious but we had to pace ourselves as we needed a drink with our food. Everyone loved their meal, it was their favourite from the holiday. It was a bit pricey though.

The glorious milkshakes
Josh’s meal came in a car
A massive burger and chips
An open prawn sandwich
A loaded hot dog

We were all very full up after that, so we went back to the caravan for a little sleep.

After everybody had rested up we drove to The Ferry Sailing Club in Old Felixstowe to do some crabbing. It was just after a thunderstorm so the sky had lovely brooding clouds and two beautiful rainbows.

Chelsea was the first to catch some crabs and they were huge! I was happy because usually, we had to look at other people’s crabs because we’re a bit rubbish. But this time people were looking at us as we’d caught the best crabs! Josh went wading out into the sea as he wasn’t patient enough to sit there catching the crabs.

Josh wading out into the sea
Chelsea admiring the view
Joe videoing the atmosphere
Josh crabbing
Josh and Dad throwing stones in the sea
Joe and Chelsea catching crabs
Mr & Mrs crab
Letting the crabs go
The wonderful sunset…
…great for Instagram

We’d got to crabbing quite late and by the time we finished, it was about 9 pm. We wanted fish and chips for tea so drove back into town. We searched around everywhere but nothing was open so we had to settle on Dominos for a second night which didn’t make Dad very happy.

The pier was lit up at night and illuminated the floor a bright green
The storm clouds were rolling in from all around us
Pretty lights guided us along the promenade
A beautiful red sunset lit the end of the road
A slash of red in the sky. A very weird rainbow

We went back to the caravan with our pizza and watched The Nutcracker and the Four Realms which was a bit predictable but still enjoyable. We gave it a 6/10 on IMDb.

It was very late after that so we all went to bed.

Day 4

This was our last day of the holiday so we woke up early to pack and then took a photo in front of the caravan.

Our obligatory family portrait in front of the caravan

Sitting in Delphine’s American Diner we wrote a list of all that we wanted to achieve on holiday. We still had to do some things before we left which meant we had ice cream for breakfast from the lovely Little Ice Cream Co. That made me very happy.

Me and Chelsea then went on the 2p machines at the pier and tried to win a cuddly toy in the claw machine but it kept eating our money. We did win a squishy ball on a 2p machine and won some tickets and traded them in for some sweeties.

There were two things left on the list; fish and chips, and playing on the beach. So we managed to fit that in. Josh dug a massive trench out to sea from his sandcastle and we went to the pier fish and chips restaurant for lunch but ate them sitting on the beach.

Our Fish and Chips
Josh’s Trench

Before the holiday me and Chelsea had made a Pinterest board of nice photos to take on the beach. We might have been a bit overestimating Felixstowe’s beach but it was fun to experiment nonetheless.

There are lots of lovely beach huts in Felixstowe
We tried to make a heart with our feet
This seems to be a very trendy thing to do at the beach
Love and peace
Mum brought her own shells to the beach and we borrowed them for our photography
I love the shallow depth of field in this photo

We were then finally ready to leave lovely Felixstowe behind. We headed off for Jimmy’s Farm.

When we arriaved we saw a little peacock making friends with the children.

We then looked around the farm at all the animals which took the rest of the day. It’s really grown since when I was little, and even more so since when my Mum was little.