We live a 10 minute walk away from a rocky beach, and a 5 minute (if that) drive from a nice sandy, swimming beach. And we do spend a fair bit of time there, more so in summer. But even in Winter, we'll often go for a walk and then let the kids have a play. If we've had enough of being at home, I'll often pop the kids in the car, and we'll just go sit on a rock for half an hour then come home. In summer, we are there at least once on a weekend, if not more. And if DH can get home at a decent time from work, we often try to go in the evenings too when its really hot.

The great thing about living so close is that you can just go for half an hour or an hour, and it doesn't have to be a big expedition. If its stinking hot, we'll just go down for a quick swim to cool off, and all we'll take is towels. Other times, we'll take a picnic dinner and go down about 5ish, have a swim, let the kids play, eat, have another swim and get home in time for bed time.

We've already decided that our next house will be even closer, as long as its close to a ramp, so that DH can just walk down with his surfboard, rather than having to put it on the roof racks.