It was a beautiful summer’s day. The sky was blue and the sun was hot. Mum said ‘let’s go to the beach for the day.’ I thought that was a wonderful idea and ran to find my new swimsuit that Grandma had given me for Christmas. It was a bright red and had matching beach towel with white spots.

When we arrived at the beach I jumped out of the car, grabbed Mum’s hand and started to run towards the sand. It felt so good to have my toes in the soft yellow sand. I loved the way the sand squeezed through my toes and made a squeaky noise when we walked on it.

It was so warm, Mum and I decided to go down to the water to swim while Dad stayed and under the shade of our big beach umbrella. I did lots of splashing and squealing as the waves tumbled about knocking me off my feet into the cool water. Mum was right beside me the whole time, making sure I was safe. We had such fun in the waves, I was so happy to be at the beach.

After our swim I played with the bucket and spade and made Dad a lovely big sandcastle. I found some pretty shells to put on it and spent my time imagining what it would be like to live in a sandcastle by the sea.

Just as I was finishing the sandcastle, Dad started yelling ‘look what I can see’. As I looked up I noticed a cute little fairy penguin was close by. He was standing at the edge of the water watching me build my sandcastle. He stood looking for quite awhile and then quietly waddled into the sea and disappeared. It was the first time I had ever saw a fairy penguin and thought it was the cutest little creature I had ever seen.

Then I heard mum say ‘time to go home now’. I was sad to leave the beach, but I packed up all my toys and said goodbye to my sandcastle and waved to the fairy penguin. I climbed into the car and was fast asleep before we left the beach.