The summation of the day is crabs and creakers.
To start today we surprised the kids with the news that
we would be taking them to see a musical version of The Creakers at the Theatre
Royal Plymouth tonight. They are both
big fans of Tom Fletcher’s books and love the audiobook versions which often
include songs as part of the story. It
was a random chance that when planning this trip we had noticed that this stage
show version of one of their favourite books was being premiered in Plymouth
and so we couldn’t miss the opportunity.
Before that though we had a rock pooling session booked
so scruffy clothes and walking boots donned we set off for Wembury, a local
beach on the outskirts of Plymouth. This
is a regular event run from the Wembury Marine Centre by the Devon Wildlife
Trust. The first adventure was the
narrow roads to get there with Google maps maybe not always taking you the most
practical of routes!
Matt was sitting this one out so after a quick talk
explaining The Seashore Code and why it is important to follow it, me and the
kids joined the small group to head down to the shore front. It was clear pretty early on that my
expectation of rock pooling based on previous experience was not quite what was
going to happen on this occasion. The
instructions had been to please “wear wellington boots or other suitable sturdy
shoes which can get wet”, there had been no mention of the potential of wading into
deep pools of sea water. And whilst I
managed to keep to the lower calf levels, the kids at times went all in up to
their mid-thighs.
We had a great time though. The guide was really excellent and showed us lots of interesting things, always had time for the kids finds and offered them information on what they had in their bucket. As a group we found a wide range of creatures including several species of crab, anemones, sea stars, brittle stars, pipefish, prawns, a Cornish sucker and various blenny-like small fish.
The crabs were the easiest for the kids to catch and it was actually really interesting hearing and feeling the differences between the various types, from the velvet like feel of the aptly named velvet swimming crab to the nippy (as Forrest will attest) shore crab and the hairy looking broad-clawed porcelain crab.
But
the most exciting was a crab that Paloma found which was a species that the two
expert guides struggled to identify.
They took photos and when we later saw them back at the Centre said that
they believed it to be a toothed crab but this was a species they had only seen
a couple for times before on this beach and even then the specimens they had
previously seen were half the size of Paloma’s and (much to her pleasure) told
her it was a great find.
We could easily have spent longer here but with the
carpark money expiring and the promise of a second visit to the aquarium, we striped
the kids to their pants and travelled back to Plymouth for lunch and a change
of clothes at the Airbnb.
Arriving at the NMA at 3:15pm gave us just under two hours
to re-explore. We followed the route round again and with a bit of nudging along the way we made it to The Great
Barrier Reef with the aim to spend a bit more time here as this area had been neglected due to running
out of time on Wednesday. Narrowly
avoiding being escorted out of the last viewing room we made our way out
through the gift shop with more purchases made.
A
quick walk through the old town area picking up some fish and chips on route
for tea and then it was time for another quick change before heading out to the
theatre. I will start by saying the kids
absolutely loved the show and to be fair it was entertaining, but if I am
honest it did feel like a show still in the final stages of development. Let’s say it has potential but isn’t quite
there yet. The most important critics
though had a brilliant night and are now tucked up in bed listening to the
audiobook and being told that if they don’t stop singing along to the songs it
will get turned off!
Blogged by Amber.
