Grateful for Sea & Shore

It always feels like coming home when we arrive there, and there's always so much sadness when the time comes to leave. Even the air smells more vivid, more alive, when we're there.
We've just returned from a flying trip to our family's beach house on the Great Ocean Road, and it's been magical seeing my little ones enjoy the place I love so much. This is where my beloved proposed (under strict instructions!), where we were married, where I spent most of the time growing my Sprocket within me, where both my little ones were Christened. So many of my best loved childhood teen and twenties memories are from here: being sped up curves of green, thrust into the sky then gliding down the back of the wave, fires on wintry nights, lolling in dark shallows under moon and stars, meandering the shoreline for treasures and the thrill of finding the perfect mother of peal shell, no larger than a fingernail.
We had a brief but lovely time. We built sandcastles and squashed them, we ran along the fairy-path through the ti-trees and climbed the path over the dunes for that first heart-stopping sight of the back beach and the view across the sea to Lorne and the Otways. We searched for sand-hoppers and golden beetles under the clumps of seaweed (we spent a LOT of time doing this) and paddled in the shallows.
So today I'm linking up with 52-Weeks-of-Grateful to give thanks for the special places that make our hearts sing, for the joys of the sea and the shore and for the delight of small children in the world around them.

Do you have a special place that always makes your heart soar?