![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/image15.jpg\")
<\/a>While I unpacked our picnic the Littlest of the Tribe reacquainted herself with the beach and started playing in the sand and Gerald Durrell was off beach combing.<\/p>\n Just along the beach from us, an older couple had a table and chairs set up with crockery, cutlery, glasses, food and a bottle of wine – how civilised! \u00a0If it hadn’t been for the Tribe being with us, our picnic would have felt distinctly inferior. \u00a0That is for the future when the Tribe have grown up and are off exploring the world on their own.<\/p>\n And then we will look back and remember sandy picnics filled with laughter (with a smattering of bickering) on sun filled afternoons.<\/p>\n Hengitsbury Head is a site of international\u00a0archeological importance dating back 12,000 years. \u00a0The dramatic cliffs tell a geological story dating back between 65 and 46.5 million years.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The headland also has national and international wildlife protection and astonishingly a quarter of Britain’s flowering plants grow here, a third of the UK’s moths have been recorded here, as have 300 bird species. \u00a0Impressive stuff.<\/p>\n After we had played, dug, paddled and eaten it was time for a cycle to the spit end of Hengitsbury opposite Mudeford Quay before the sun disappeared. \u00a0Late afternoon and the light was glorious – that glorious golden glow that makes everything (and everyone!) look beautiful. \u00a0The path leading to the spit was busy with people walking back to their cars and it did feel like dodgems as we attempted to weave our way around the crowds. \u00a0Fortunately we were going the opposite direction to everyone else.<\/p>\n After passing the jetty for the ferry and the Beach House Cafe (our favourite spot for lunch on Boxing Day after a long walk and ferry ride), we stopped just outside the Black House looking across to Mudeford Quay. \u00a0There were still people milling around the quay and the penultimate ferry ride was busy taking passengers back. \u00a0 As we cycled across the grassland to the car park, the sun now almost disappeared, we saw a fabulous sight of a crow in a leafless tree, silhouetted against the darkening sky – perfect for the start of an evening of trick or treating.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n www.visithengistburyhead.co.uk<\/p>\n www.beachhousecafe.co.uk<\/p>\n www.mudefordferry.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Having had a half term of birthday celebrations (yes, they did become somewhat extended!) and a lot of sport for all the Tribe, it culminated with a ridiculously balmy day at the beach – at the end of October! \u00a0How fantastic. \u00a0Hengitsbury Head was our destination rather than the usual Mudeford. \u00a0Bizarrely we found an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[119,197,201,76],"tags":[87,283,202,203],"class_list":["post-1246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family-cycling","category-family-life","category-hengitsbury-head","category-uk-days-out","tag-featured","tag-hengitsbury-head","tag-mudeford","tag-solent-beach","wpcat-119-id","wpcat-197-id","wpcat-201-id","wpcat-76-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/image13.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4llmx-k6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1246"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1267,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions\/1267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lifewiththetribe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>As we returned past the pretty, pastel coloured beach huts we noticed a couple of paddle boarders on the still, mirror-like, water. \u00a0Three little girls in swimsuits with damp hair ran past shivering, looking for the warm towels that their parents had waiting for them. \u00a0It felt more like a late summer’s evening than the last day of October.<\/p>\n<\/a>