Overcast Beach Adventures In Sandown Isle Of Wight

For our family, one of the biggest highlights of our Isle Of Wight holidays is the beaches. It’s either gorgeous countryside wherever you look or it’s long coastal views as you travel around the island. Most of our adventures have been blessed by gorgeous sunshine and warmth, creating a real sense of being abroad on a little island. This holiday’s weather forecast wasn’t quite like usual. Although it certainly wasn’t horrendous either.

We woke up on our first morning (second day) with the plan to head to a beach again. With the pandemic and having travelled with older relatives, we wanted to make sure we kept our days out quite outdoorsy and spacious, away from as many risk factors as we could. So a beach day seemed like the perfect option.

There was the most beautiful sunrise but a forecast of rain for our second day on the island. We decided to take a slow-paced morning at the holiday barn. Freya spent some time with her Nannie trying to solve the dog puzzle that we’d decided to attempt this trip. My mother-in-law is certainly the Queen of board games.

We are notorious for getting up and getting out during normal life and during holidays, taking this first morning slow and relaxed was a bit odd for me but it felt so amazing. I even took a nice chilled bath. A great way to kick starts the holiday on the right footing.

Being a small island off the South coast of England, the Isle Of Wight is quite literally surrounded by the most breathtakingly beautiful beaches. It can feel a bit overwhelming when trying to pick the right one for a day out with children as there’s a lot of factors that have to be taken into consideration.

Sandown beach is one of our favourites. The beach incline is quite flat and empty of rocks meaning that children can paddle safely and when the tide comes in, it’s not too deep. There are several car parks available along the esplanade, our favourite being right near the zoo as you can pay for a daily ticket. There’s a beautiful town, a pier, cafes and public free toilets. I think that pretty much covers all requirements for a beach trip - toilets, food and fun!

We set up our little area on the beach right by the zoo car park. This gave us easy access to the car if we needed it or forget anything and it’s only a short walk to the nearest toilets and cafe. As the day wasn’t exactly the brightest, the beach was pretty empty and that allowed us to feel safe.

It was quite windy, just like the day before, so we lay out our picnic blanket close to the wall to provide some shelter from the wind. It worked a little bit but every now and again the gust of wind blew sand all over us. It gave us a lot of amusement throughout the day.

It didn’t take me long to feel a bit jealous of the girls splashing about in the pool. I quickly changed into my swimming costume and ran into the water. It was freezing but so exhilarating too. That adrenaline soon drifted away once I got out of the water and rush to get back warm again.

My mother-in-law’s partner had put together a lovely picnic lunch for us to enjoy. The girls built sandcastles and moats along the beach. Eva played tennis with Nannie. Grandad and Hubby buried the girls in the sand and created mermaids. My Nan-In-Law joined us for lunch. It was a beautiful day spent at the beach.

With the clouds getting darker and the tide coming in, we decided to make a move and head back to our holiday home at Kemphill Barns. I’m quite glad we did because it started to pour with rain as we arrived home giving us an oddly beautiful setting for an afternoon indoors.

My mother-in-law is pretty awesome at thinking up activities to keep the kids entertained and always gets involved. She played Twister, did more puzzles and played hide and seek. It was great to hear them giggling so much together. After the year we’ve all had it was honestly quite magical.

We ended the evening with a beautiful homecooked dinner as a big family and played card games until it was far too late for our bedtime.

All of our Isle Of Wight videos can be viewed in the playlist below. I hope you enjoy them and come back soon for our third day of adventures on the island.