Near Padstow, there is Hawker’s Bay, a beautiful spot overlooking the Camel Estuary. After a pleasant morning in Padstow we were looking for a place to eat our freshly baked pasties. There is a field car park overlooking the beach and we identified this as an ideal location.

The car park was managed by an old Cornish gentleman with tanned skin like old leather. I enquired ‘what’s the damage?’ and he replied ‘£2’. Thinking that sounded reasonable, I handed over two pound coins and thanked him for arranging the lovely weather. ‘In’t it bootiful’ he agreed.

Being unable to access the beach as Mum (in her seventies) was unable to walk down the long and uneven path, we instead set up camp at the top of the car park and waited for the car park entertainment to begin.

Every type of vehicle and driver was represented and we witnessed different parking styles, some with more success than others. For context, the field had been cut up during wet weather and there were some fairly deep ruts now dried as hard as concrete to negotiate. Experienced drivers in ordinary hatchbacks kept their speed low, planned their approach and executed precision parking manoeuvres with aplomb. However a Range Rover sport came hammering down the hill, raising a dust cloud which blew across our picnic. ‘Sorry about that’ he grinned. Pratt. Another newer model Range Rover Sport, easily £70k of off road finesse, was also driven poorly. The driver reversed over the ruts perpendicularly and at just the wrong speed to really bounce it up and down. I’m sure his passengers appreciated that.

A transit driver which I had thought would know better started well with the right speed and approach, but then gave it too much welly and thumped his front bumper.

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Naturally I parked the CRV with panache without removing the bumper, sump or exhaust and we exited without any drama.