Sunday, April 27, 2003

Walk 67 -- Maldon to Heybridge Basin

Ages: Colin was 60 years and 354 days. Rosemary was 58 years and 131 days.
Weather: Windy, but warm with lots of sun.
Location: Maldon to Heybridge Basin.
Distance: 3½ miles.
Total distance: 457½ miles.
Terrain: Promenade, streets and a wide gravel path on the river bank.
Tide: Going out.
Rivers to cross: No.18, the River Blackwater at Maldon.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: None.
Pubs: The Queen’s Head at Maldon where we drank ‘Maldon Gold’.
‘English Heritage’ properties: None.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: None.
How we got there and back: We packed up our things and said our ‘Goodbyes and Thank Yous’ to Paul and Caroline. Then we drove – with bikes on the back of the car – from Isleham to Goldhanger where we found it impossible to park less than half a mile from the river due to yellow lines, etc. Since we were running late and were both very tired after so many successful days walking, we decided on PLAN B. This involved halving the distance of the walk, so we drove to Heybridge Basin where – to our delight – we found a car park near the river bank and it was FREE! We cycled to Maldon along the canal towpath which was pleasant, if a little scarey! We chained our bikes to a fence by the pub (which we visited first), then walked along the promenade to the spot where we finished the walk yesterday to sit on a bench and eat our lunch.
At the end, we drank tea and ate a further snack in the free car park, and drove to Maldon where we loaded up the bikes for the last time for a while. We then drove straight home to Bognor.

Maldon looked very pretty from the bench where we sat to eat our lunch. There were swans on the river, and magnificent Thames barges in the distance moored by the quay. There were a lot of people about enjoying the Spring sunshine, not surprising as it was a Sunday. We used the loo with the glorious mural on its back wall, and then commenced our walk.
Just next to the ‘Promenade Park’ was a large area of sludge that looked a bit of a mess. It used to be a marine pool which was dug out in the 19th century to encourage sea-bathing, but it has been allowed to silt up over recent years and was devoid of water when we passed it. It seems so sad when these things are left to rot. There was a chestnut-paling fence around the area with notices telling you it was ‘closed’, but we were amused to see some NO DIVING notices were still in place! The ‘beach’ area – an expanse of sand – was ‘open’ according to the notices, but since it was situated the other side of the sludge and well away from the river, no children were playing there.
The Thames barges were a magnificent sight – five of them moored on the riverside.
They made an excellent backdrop to a group of Morris dancers who whooped it up with their bells and sticks on the quay. We stopped to watch them for a while – it is lovely that these old traditions are still very much alive in this modern day and age. We carried on past the ‘Queen’s Head’ pub where we had partaken of a tipple earlier, and continued through the town.

We tried to stay as near to the river as possible, but there was a labyrinth of narrow streets with houses old and new. It was actually a terrace of brand new houses that foxed us – there seemed to be a pavement passing in front of them, but it came to a dead end and we had to backtrack and skip through an entrance, which was probably private, in order to get out. It was all very confusing. We emerged by the river bridge, and were annoyed to discover that we could have cycled that way on the flat when we were setting up this walk, but we had bombed on up a steep hill instead. Oh well, you can’t win ’em all!
We reached the bridge and crossed the River Blackwater. We had walked fifteen miles from the sea to do so, and will need to walk a further sixty-five miles to get back to the real seashore again!! The Essex marshes are certainly a tough challenge! We then carried on up the road, ignoring the industrial area to our right in accordance with additional rule no.3, until we came to the third roundabout. Just before it, we turned sharp right across a rather derelict patch, and discovered that the footpath marked on our map did exist albeit a little overgrown.
Over a fence to our right we could see a number of buses parked impossibly close together in a compound, and idly wondered whether we had now come across a home for retired buses, like the trains at Shoebury!
We followed a ditch, and a bit further on we were able to cross it to a much better path which led us along a high bank with the river to our right and disused gravel pits to our left. We could look back and see the town of Maldon, and the gorse was flowering profusely which made it all very pleasant. Colin got very excited when he saw a pair of geese with their goslings on the gravel pit lake, and he went off down the bank to try to photograph them. I walked on, and heard a sudden cheer from the other river bank – someone had obviously scored a goal in a football match. I couldn’t see anything, but I was almost opposite the spot where we started today’s walk and a football ground is marked on the map just behind there.
We were both feeling tired and glad that today’s walk was only a short one – after all we had walked over a hundred miles in the last sixteen days, and cycled more than sixty! A lot of it had been hard going, and not of riveting interest. We were both rather fed up and wanted to go home. We rounded a bend in the river, and came to the end of the canal that we had cycled up earlier. We crossed over the lock gates to where a lot of people were sitting outside a pub at Heybridge Basin.

That ended Walk no.67, we shall pick up Walk no.68 next time at ‘The Old Ship’ at Heybridge Basin. We walked a few yards along the towpath to the car park where we had left our car. We drank tea and ate a further snack, then drove to Maldon where we loaded up the bikes for the last time for a while. We drove home to Bognor over the Dartford Bridge – traffic was light so it only took us a couple of hours. We discovered that Esme, our cat of almost nineteen years, had been missing for over a week. She was very thin when we left two weeks ago, and not very active although she was still eating well. We think her kidneys had gone, and she slunk away somewhere to die as old cats do. We shall miss her – we only have Lucy left now, and she is well past her eighteenth birthday!

Saturday, April 26, 2003

Walk 66 -- Maylandsea to Maldon

Ages: Colin was 60 years and 353 days. Rosemary was 58 years and 130 days.
Weather: Overcast, but occasionally the sun broke through.
Location: Maylandsea to Maldon.
Distance: 8 miles.
Total distance: 454 miles.
Terrain: Grass-topped sea wall/river bank.
Tide: Out.
Rivers to cross: None.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: Nos.69 & 70 by the causeway to Northey Island, no.71 at the end of the National Trust land.
Pubs: None.
‘English Heritage’ properties: None.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: None.
How we got there and back: We drove – with bikes on the back of the car – from Isleham to Maldon where we parked in the ‘Promenade Park’ at huge expense! We cycled back to Maylandsea and left our bikes chained to a fence by the sailing club.
At the end, we drank tea and ate filled baguettes while still in the expensive car park. Then we drove back to Maylandsea to load up the bikes and drive back to Isleham in Cambridgeshire where we were staying with Paul & Caroline.

We left Maylandsea (with a Thames barge moored in the marina) to the sound of a digger making up the road where Colin wanted to park two days ago until I persuaded him otherwise. It was a dirt road, obviously private, and the noise this morning was intolerable – we were glad to get away. Maylandsea is a pretty place at the end of a creek, and we had to wind our way round on the river bank until we were nearly opposite the village, then walk northwards to return to the River Blackwater.
It had rained continuously from yesterday teatime until the early hours, so I wore gaiters which stopped my trousers getting wet from the long grass. Colin wouldn’t put his on because it was ‘too hot’, so he had to pick his way through. We were finding all this riverbank walking rather tedious, and were both getting tired and tetchy. It was time we went home!
We saw a lot of wildlife today which lifted our flagging spirits. We saw the usual black-headed gulls, oystercatchers, etc. We saw swallows, curlews, a pair of swans which flew off noisily, and a heron whose flight was graceful and silent. We saw a fox, and a field of hares – but our excitement reached its peak when we spotted a short-eared owl! It perched on a fence, near enough for us to see its face through our optical instruments – then it flew across the fields – oh! so elegantly! Magic!
Further on we passed some rectangular pools in the marshes, and conjectured that they were derelict oyster beds. According to the map, the public footpath does a detour round yet another creek near Northey Island, but there is a new bank – not marked as a right of way – which goes straight across the neck of said creek, cutting out about a kilometre of walking. We were much relieved to find that everybody walks the shorter way, and the ‘real’ public footpath has deteriorated almost to nothingness.
We had good views of Osea Island behind us – which is private and apparently for sale (have you got six and a half million pounds to spare?) – and we passed the causeway leading out to Northey Island which belongs to the National Trust. A notice informed us that the latter is a nature reserve and if you want to visit it you must make an appointment with the warden, giving at least twenty-four hours notice. That was enough for us! We chose not to visit, in accordance with additional rule no.5.
Shortly afterwards we came to real civilisation – the pretty little town of Maldon. People were out in their hundreds because it was a fine Saturday in April and there is a pleasant riverside park, which was set out in the 19th century, called ‘Promenade Park’. Those Victorians certainly had style! Maldon has its origins in Saxon times, but they were beaten into submission by the Vikings in AD 991 – we passed the battlefield but it didn’t look different from any other field we had passed. A millennium later we are all a bit of mix and mush and you couldn’t tell a Saxon from a Viking if you tried! I expect that in another thousand years – if the human race survives that long – we won’t be able to tell the difference between an African an Asian or a European. Our own grandchildren have already been stirred in the pot, being one quarter West Indian, which makes them both interesting personalities, in the peak of good health and startlingly good looking!
Getting back to Maldon, we could see swans in the river, Thames barges moored by the quay and a funny little church in the distance. Families were out enjoying themselves, and even the public toilets (near where we parked our car) had a colourful mural, painted by local schoolchildren, depicting a riverside scene. We felt quite uplifted.That ended Walk no.66, we shall pick up Walk no.67 next time at Maldon near the picturesque toilets! We had our tea, then ate filled baguettes which we had bought that morning. We collected our bikes from Maylandsea, and returned to Isleham by the rural route again because we were quite early and it was still daylight.

Thursday, April 24, 2003

Walk 65 -- St Lawrence Bay to Maylandsea

Ages: Colin was 60 years and 351 days. Rosemary was 58 years and 128 days.
Weather: Overcast, and we did get a shower of rain which lasted just long enough for us to don all our wet weather gear – then the sun came out!
Location: St Lawrence Bay to Maylandsea.
Distance: 8½miles.
Total distance: 446 miles.
Terrain: Grass-topped sea wall/river bank.
Tide: Out.
Rivers to cross: None.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: No.68 at the end of Mayland Creek.
Pubs: None – and Colin didn’t make a fuss!
‘English Heritage’ properties: None.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: None.
How we got there and back: We drove – with bikes on the back of the car – from Isleham to Maylandsea where we were able to park in a road outside the sailing club. We cycled back to St Lawrence Bay and left our bikes chained to a fence by a shelter at ‘The Stone’.
At the end, we moved the car down the road to a piece of open land. There we drank tea and ate our filled baguettes. Then we drove back to St Lawrence Bay to load up the bikes and drive back to Isleham in Cambridgeshire where we were staying with Paul & Caroline.

Today’s walk was so boring, my first photograph was of a bunch of dandelions – all this walking must be getting to me! Actually, dandelions are very showy flowers and I do quite like them – so long as they are not growing in my garden. Our walk led us up the creek and back again, on the sea wall for miles and miles (yawn!)
We left St Lawrence with some relief because we hadn’t much liked the place, and soon came to a boatyard at a place called Stansgate Abbey Farm. At the further end, there was a notice on a stile telling us it was private land and we had no right of way. I looked at the map more closely, and sure enough there was no green line along the next bit of sea wall – instead it led across the boatyard and along a lane for about a mile.
We were a bit miffed because we could see there was a perfectly good sea wall, grass-topped, which we could have walked along without harming anybody – yet we were forced to walk along a tarmac lane between hedges where there was no view, and we got ‘buzzed’ several times by cars whizzing by too fast. Where we turned off the lane, we met up with the sea wall again and followed it all the way to Maylandsea. The gate leading off the ‘private’ bit had barbed wire wrapped around the top bar so you couldn’t climb over it without serious injury – nice!
Subsequently, we heard from two different sources that this land belongs to Tony Benn, the famous Labour politician. How dare he! If I’d known that before, I would have walked the sea wall anyway – and carefully unwrapped the barbed wire as someone before us had already started to do.
Soon after that we met a man walking the other way. Lovely to pass the time of day with, but he turned round in order to carry on nattering as he walked alongside us. That was not what we wanted – to feel we had to make conversation with a complete stranger as we walked along, and this chap could talk the hind leg off a donkey! It seemed he was looking for a place to fish, but since it was all mud and marsh where we were, he was disappointed. He did impart two rather interesting pieces of information – he was the first of the two people to tell us that the land belonged to Tony Benn. He also told us that Osea Island, which we could see out in the middle of the river and is only accessible by boat or by causeway at very low tide, was for sale for six and a half million quid! He reckoned that David Beckham was interested in buying it, but how true that bit of speculation was is anybody’s guess.
Suddenly our new friend marched on, and we breathed a sigh of relief.
But then he stopped to chat to a birdwatcher who had a telescope set up on the bank, so we caught him up. “Would you like to see a very rare sight?” asked the twitcher, excitedly as we approached. I looked through his telescope, and could just make out a very dull-looking brown bird in the distance. “What is it?” I asked. “It’s a dotterel! It’s a very rare summer visitor!” I couldn’t help myself, I just blurted out, “But it’s so plain! Isn’t it strange how a rarity like this is so dull?” Well, that remark went down like a lead balloon, so we diplomatically made a hasty retreat! The two men carried on discussing their exciting find as we scurried away round the next bend. Then it started to rain, so we donned our wet weather gear. By that time our chattering friend had caught us up, but he had no coat so he hurried past us with a friendly wave, and turned into a nearby caravan site. We didn’t see him again.
Then it stopped raining, so it was off with all the gear because it was too hot and stuffy to wear it. We dared it to start raining again, and it didn’t. We had an awful lot of muddy creeks to walk around before we hit Maylandsea, and they all looked the same. We did have one or two wildlife experiences – we saw a little tern and heard it plopping in the water, we saw golden plovers and heard cuckoos (must be Spring!) We saw avocets looking graceful, we saw and heard skylarks, Colin saw a ruddy duck – about which there is much controversy – and we saw swallows (must be Summer!) We also heard the Army guns again – just to remind us we are in the real world.
At last we came to Maylandsea Marina, where we met a number of people out walking their dogs or jogging after work. We turned through the sailing club (where the route of the public footpath is marked out in white lines) to our car, and were pleased to note that it was only 5.15pm – really early for us!

That ended Walk no.65, we shall pick up Walk no.66 next time at Maylandsea Marina. We moved the car along the road a short distance to an open piece of land where we felt more comfortable drinking tea and eating our food. Then we collected our bikes and headed for Isleham. Since it was still light I navigated a different route on quiet roads, passing through some stunningly beautiful villages with thatched and beamed cottages, village greens and loads of blossom. We also saw a barn owl momentarily – and later that evening we heard an owl calling in the trees opposite Paul’s cottage.

Wednesday, April 23, 2003

Walk 64 -- Othona Roman Fort to St Lawrence Bay

Ages: Colin was 60 years and 350 days. Rosemary was 58 years and 127 days.
Weather: Fine and sunny, but that cool wind was still around.
Location: Othona Roman Fort to St Lawrence Bay.
Distance: 8 miles.
Total distance: 437½ miles.
Terrain: Grass-topped sea wall, except at St Lawrence Bay where the public footpath was completely obliterated by a new residential estate, and we were expected to leap over about 50 yards of ‘PRIVATE’ ‘KEEP OUT’ land to get to the road!
Tide: Out, coming in.
Rivers to cross: None.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: None.
Pubs: The Cricketers at Bradwell-on-Sea where we tried Tolly Cobbold Original, but much preferred Ridley’s IPA. (Colin was delighted to find this pub sold ‘real ale’ even though it wasn’t in his book – the only problem was our visit was spoilt by a family of kids who were allowed to jump all over the picnic tables and play football in the pub garden!)
‘English Heritage’ properties: None.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: No.21 at St Lawrence Bay where the public footpath had been built over and we had to divert to the road!
How we got there and back: We drove – with bikes on the back of the car – from Isleham to St Lawrence Bay where the car park marked on our map was, in fact, private and the only toilet was one of those ‘Dalek’ ones which are costly and we don’t trust the door to stay closed – or to open when we want it to! We parked under a tree in an un-made-up road and hoped we were inconspicuous enough. (We did not feel that St Lawrence Bay was a very friendly place.) We cycled to Othona via Bradwell-on-Sea – that is where we found the pub!
At the end, we drove straight back to Othona and had our tea and filled baguettes there. Then we loaded up the bikes and drove back to Isleham in Cambridgeshire where we were staying with Paul & Caroline.

Joy of joys! Colin found a pub to his liking on our cycle ride to the start point of today’s walk! After the fiasco of the last two walks, it was a relief to find a tavern with beer which met his criteria – and it wasn’t even in his book! In actual fact, we both felt a lot better after a day’s rest and with the knowledge that the toughest walks this session are now behind us.
The day had started with frustrations at St Lawrence Bay, where the car park turned out to be private and the Public Convenience was one of those steel boxes that charge you 20p for a pee and are so automatic that you sit in dread that the door is going to open revealing you in all your glory! (We both used a bush out in the countryside – infinitely preferable.) As we cycled through the village of Bradwell-on-Sea, Colin insisted on looking in the pub ‘just in case’ – no joy! We looked at the ancient village lock-up situated in the church wall (it was tiny!), then cycled along the Roman Road towards Othona passing another pub. That was the one!
After chatting with the landlord, we decided to take our drinks outside as it was a nice day. Then The Family arrived – spoilt brats whose idea of fun was to leap over and on to the picnic tables and play football all around them! No one told them to stop – neither the parents because they apparently didn’t care, nor the landlord because the father had ordered numerous plates of junk and chips therefore spending a lot more money than we were. So we drank up and left.
The real Walk started at Othona Roman Fort. This was built towards the end of the 3rd century AD, probably by Carausius who was known as the ‘Count of the Saxon Shore’. He ordered stone to be brought by ship from London and Kent, and built a small quay here for it to be landed. He also built a road leading inland towards London – the very road we had just cycled along. When the Romans departed, the fort became the centre of a small Saxon city called Ythancestrir. Very little of the original fort remains in the present day. Two-thirds of its area is under water at high tide, and most of the rest which remains above ground level has been looted at one time or another. There is just a small exposed section of wall which was covered in brambles when we tried to find it. The quay had been completely washed away many centuries ago.
By the 7th century, Christianity was beginning to take a hold on our pagan shores. A monk called Aidan had been training groups of missionaries at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, and he was invited by King Sigbert, monarch of the East Saxons (Es-Sex) to send some monks to Ythancestrir in order to convert the local populace – who probably had no say in what religion they followed because, in those days, you did what you were told if you wanted to survive! Aidan chose Cedd to lead this little band of holy men, and they sailed down the east coast to land at the ancient Roman quay at Othona.
Cedd did his stuff, and then needed a church for his novice Christian community. Othona, by then 400 years old, was merely a ruin, so Cedd used the stone to build a church which he dedicated to St Peter. He cleverly used the firm foundation of the old fort’s main gateway so that the church ended up straddling the original line of the wall. It became known as St Peter-on-the-Wall, a name it has retained ever since. We call it a chapel because of its small size, but for those early Saxons it was a huge building.
The year was 654 AD. That same year Cedd was consecrated Bishop of the East Saxons, and St Peter-on-the-Wall became his Cathedral! The building continued to be used as a place of Christian worship for the next thousand years, so it was always kept in a good state of repair. By the 14th century, Ythancestrir no longer existed and all trace of the hovels those early Saxons lived in had disappeared. A village grew up just over a mile further inland (Bradwell-on-Sea) around a ‘new’ medieval Parish Church, but St Peter’s was still used as a chapel-of-ease until the 17th century. When it was finally abandoned, it continued to be used as a navigational aid for ships on this treacherous coast so it was still kept in a fairly good state of repair. A local farmer used it as a barn, and although he knocked some holes in the wall to get his farmcarts in, at least he kept the roof on so that they wouldn’t get wet!
In 1920, it was handed back to the Diocese by the farmer who owned it at the time. It was restored, though the rounded apse at the eastern end had completely fallen down so that was left. It is now a place of pilgrimage, used occasionally for services ‘to bring the people of Essex together’. We marvelled that this magnificent building – one of the finest examples of Saxon architecture still standing in this country – was actually built one thousand, three hundred and forty-nine years ago, and is still in constant use!
We found a sheltered spot out of the wind by the bramble-covered Roman wall, and sat down to eat our sarnies. Then we started the actual Walk! Just north of the chapel we passed a wooded copse behind which were some buildings. A notice informed us that it was the ‘Othona Community’ and continued:
Welcome to Othona. Here we meet together to explore the joys and pitfalls of living in community – individuals and families from this country and abroad. Founded in 1946, Othona has a Christian basis but is not exclusive: among its active members are people who cannot share a traditional Christian faith.
In a simple lifestyle of Work, Worship, Study and Play we try to break down barriers of race, creed, age, gender and disability. You are welcome to visit. We invite you to enjoy and respect this peaceful environment. Please keep your dog on a lead.
Sounded a bit quirky to us, so we didn’t take them up on their invitation and moved on. From behind the trees came the sound of children playing – squabbling in the usual sort of manner. Then, not a hundred yards further on, we came face to face with The Family from the pub! Fortunately they were returning from their short walk, and after we had passed them unscathed I remarked that – with a bit of luck – we shall never ever come across them again in our lives!
All too soon our path turned westwards, and we were on a riverbank again – albeit a wide river. There is no possibility of cheating on a ferry across the River Blackwater, and it is ninety miles to walk round to the next bit of real seashore near Clacton. The Essex marshes were proving to be a tough challenge! We could hear Army explosives in the distance – was it Shoeburyness behind us or Fingringhoe ahead of us? We were about halfway, as the crow flies, between the two. Learning how to blast each other to bits – Oh! the folly of Man!
We passed Bradwell Nuclear Power Station – two reactors, each in a tower that looked like a multi-storey office block. It looked very quiet, and we found out some weeks later that this was because the station is being decommissioned. The process will take three more years to accomplish, then the reactors will have to stand idle for a further seventy years at least before it will be safe to demolish them! Oh! the folly of Man!
We came to Bradwell Waterside where we walked round a pretty marina. The road ends there by going straight into the sea. This is really to facilitate the launching of boats, but I surmised that there may once, perhaps, have been a ferry across to Mersea Island – but it was really just wishful thinking, idly discounting the many miles of Essex marshes we still have to walk. Oh well! There was also an Activity Centre through which the public footpath led. A notice warned us that the gates each side would be locked during certain activities, but fortunately they were open today. I was in no mood to go a longer way!
The second half of the walk was all marshes. In April 1995 (so a notice informed us) the footpath was diverted to a new seawall about twenty yards inland. Then the old seawall was breached in a couple of places to allow the marsh to revert to a saltwater habitat. This is because saltwater marshland is relatively rare due to massive draining of such areas for farming. We did not count this as a diversion because it was already marked on the map that we have.
We heard a cuckoo again – and saw a short-eared owl flying about which was very exciting! Colin tried very hard to photograph it, but it was just too far away. We met only one other person before we got to St Lawrence Bay, a woman out walking her dog. As we stopped to pass the time of day, she remarked on the holes we had been encountering on the path. (We had to be very careful at times not to wrick an ankle.) She told us it was ‘The Hunt’ who were responsible, and since she was a local Parish Councillor she was going to put in a complaint about them, and not for the first time either. She reckoned they ought to pay for the damage they cause to the seawall, where they shouldn’t be with their horses anyway. We agreed that the path was in a bit of a mess in places.
As we approached St Lawrence, our way came to an abrupt halt! According to all our up-to-date maps, the public right-of-way goes along the water’s edge until it comes to a place called ‘The Stone’. But no! Mr Money - In - My - Pocket - And - No - Questions - Asked had sold his piece of waterfront land (including the public footpath) to a builder who had managed to pack a record number of new houses on to it -- almost as many houses as he had erected PRIVATE KEEP OUT notices surrounding the complex! (I wonder who knew who on the local Council!) According to these notices, there was about fifty yards of private land between the abrupt end of the footpath and the public road – what were we supposed to do? Jump? We had to walk along two sides of a triangle next to the traffic to get to ‘The Stone’, and we were very annoyed!

That ended Walk no.64, we shall pick up Walk no.65 next time at ‘The Stone’ at St Lawrence Bay. I sat down in a shelter there and looked at the sea while Colin walked along the road to retrieve the car which he had parked under a tree on the edge of a private estate. We did not feel at all comfortable in St Lawrence, so we drove back to the car park near St Peter’s chapel – where we had left our bikes – before having our tea and filled baguettes which we had bought for our evening meal. Then we drove back to Isleham.

Monday, April 21, 2003

Walk 63 -- Burnham-on-Crouch to Othona Roman Fort

Ages: Colin was 60 years and 348 days. Rosemary was 58 years and 125 days.
Weather: Fine and sunny, and much warmer than yesterday.
Location: Burnham-on-Crouch to Othona Roman Fort.
Distance: 14 miles.
Total distance: 429½ miles.
Terrain: Occasional concrete paths, but mostly grass-topped sea wall. Some of them were narrow and uneven, so we had to walk on grass tracks at the bottom out of sight of the sea which wasn’t much fun.
Tide: Coming in, then out again by the time we finished.
Rivers to cross: None.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: None.
Pubs: The Star Inn at Burnham where we had lunch, I had a shandy and Colin grumpily drank Bass – “You can get that anywhere!” – and the Station Arms at Southminster where Colin drank ‘Ploughboys’ stout & Mallard IPA and I fell asleep!
‘English Heritage’ properties: None.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: None.
How we got there and back: We drove – with bikes on the back of the car – from Isleham to the car park a quarter of a mile inland from Othona. It was a long cycle ride back to Burnham-on-Crouch, and we had gone right through Southminster and down a hill before we realised we had missed the road where the ‘real ale’ pub was situated. We carried on to Burnham, Colin stopping to look in several pubs but none met his criteria. We chained our bikes to a post on the front by the defunct ferry terminal and decided to have lunch in the pub there which did sell ‘real ale’ but “only Bass!”
At the end, we were exhausted after such a long walk. We had several cups of tea and loads of sandwiches and biscuits before driving to Southminster to seek out the real pub. It was 9.15pm before we left there to collect our bikes and drive back to Isleham in Cambridgeshire where we were staying with Paul & Caroline.

The main consolation about today’s walk was that the wind had veered round to the south, and therefore it was much warmer. We knew in advance that this walk was going to be long (14 miles) and that it would be a bit of a route march – and so it proved to be. Somehow we didn’t get going as early as we should, and there was more traffic to contend with on our journey from Isleham. Then there was the fiasco of missing the ‘real ale’ pub in Southminster – we realised we hadn’t turned down the right road in the town after we had whizzed down a long hill which brought us out into the countryside again. Neither of us wanted to climb back up again to find out where we had gone wrong. After missing the pub on such a cold and miserable walk yesterday, Colin was beside himself. (He always maintains that the pubs are just an added bonus and not that important, but he gets into a foul mood if we don’t find real ale which is kept in good condition and is a different brand from that which he can get at home – quite a high criteria.) He stopped to look in every pub between Southminster and Burnham, but none came up to scratch.
After we had parked our bikes, I suggested the ‘Star Inn’ because it did reasonably priced lunches, we had a very long walk ahead of us, it was just there in front of us, our whole walk would be away from civilisation after we left Burnham, and it did ‘Bass’ which is a real ale he likes. I was quite happy with all that reasoning, I even sat him down at a table and collected the lunches myself after queuing up in the bank holiday crowds – but he just sat there moaning because, “You can get Bass anywhere!” HONESTLY! I could scream sometimes! (But then, I don’t have to contend with wearing a catheter all the time, and he never makes a fuss about it, even when it leaks.)
As a result of all these shenanigans, it was TWO O’CLOCK before we started the Walk. First we read the notice stuck to the gate where the ferry from Wallasea Island would have come in. It ‘regretted’ that the service was no longer operating, and thanked everyone for their patronage over the last ten years. Next we passed the lifeboat station where we were warned that loud guns may be firing overhead. All too soon we left Burnham-on-Sea, and that was the last we saw of civilisation for the full Walk. Fortunately the path was clear and flat for the whole fourteen miles.
And boring! The Essex marshes are so tedious – a grass-topped sea wall, flat reclaimed marshland to the left and a river with flat reclaimed marshland to the right for miles and miles and miles………. Not a hill in sight! At least the major part of today’s walk was with the sea to our right and we were walking northwards, but it was still disheartening because we knew we will have to walk south-westwards again once we reach the next river. However, we strode eastwards from Burnham, and watched the sailing craft ply their way up and down the river. Being that it was Easter Monday, there was a lot of river traffic which added to the interest.We also met a surprising number of people – we weren’t expecting to meet anyone in such a desolate spot. The reason I had planned to do this whole fourteen miles in one go is that there didn’t seem to be any access points to the coast between Burnham and Othona. There is the occasional track marked on the map, but you never know with tracks. One or two people, obviously with local knowledge, had driven their cars down them and parked next to the sea wall. We met a few people walking their dogs. There was a group of young people playing with their pooch in the marshes to our right at one point – they were having a good laugh and they all looked a bit wet and muddy. And there was the occasional fisherman. One had brought his family in a minibus-type vehicle – the kids were obviously bored, and I heard the enormously fat Mum shout into the van, “Stop that –NOW!” in that delightful ‘Council Estate’ timbre that you hear so often in Tesco! You can’t get away from it anywhere!On the other side of the river we could see the nether end of Foulness island – far away from anywhere. There seemed to be all sorts of interesting looking masts and industrial-type buildings, none of which are marked on the map. After about five miles, our path swung round to the north and we turned our backs on that mysterious island which we are not allowed to visit without applying for a pass in triplicate and answering a lot of damn-fool questions. And we had the sea back! For the first time since Wakering Stairs, we were walking along a true coastal path, not a river bank.We settled into ‘route-march’ mode. We strode along at a steady pace, and I had planned exactly when and where we would stop, for how long and what we would eat and drink at each break – it was the only way I could cope. Sometimes the path was good – occasionally we had a stretch of concrete which was very good – and sometimes it got narrow and lumpy. Then we had to walk on the track on the landward side of the sea wall which was not so good because we couldn’t see the sea. We passed the occasional Second World War pill-box, taller here because they are situated behind the sea wall, and they look like ‘Daleks’!
We really hadn’t got time to stop and look at wildlife, but we did manage to see and hear quite a bit as we were stomping along. We saw a heron, oystercatchers, a reed bunting, and heard cuckoos so it must be Spring. In fact, we saw some swallows – more than one – so it must be Summer! But the highlights were a short-eared owl which was flying around looking for prey, and a hare sitting in a field in the distance.
We could see the Saxon chapel, which was our destination, from several miles back but it didn’t seem to get any nearer although we were marching fit to bust. There were two places on our route where a rectangular section of marsh had been reclaimed. The original sea wall and lower track went on in a straight line, but to walk the ‘nearest safe path to the coast’ we had to walk round three sides of these sections – which were long and narrow so it was no great shakes. We did the first one OK, it was just the same as the walking we had done all afternoon. As we approached the second one, it was almost the end of the trek and we were both very tired. I was on the lower track, and Colin was on the lumpy sea wall ahead of me. Having previously warned him to look out for it, I called out, “Is that it?” He answered, “like shit it isn’t!” I wasn’t going to argue with that kind of mood, so we missed it out. Later Colin claimed he had misheard me, but in truth he was still chuntering on about missing the pub!
In fact we made excellent time, and at last reached the Saxon chapel on the Roman fort of Othona before the sun went down. We were far too tired to explore this ancient site, and decided to leave that until the beginning of the next Walk.

That ended Walk no.63, we shall pick up Walk no.64 next time at St Peter’s Chapel on the ancient Roman site of Othona. We walked the half mile inland to the car park where our car was waiting for us full of hot tea and food! Colin was insistent that we then call in at the pub in Southminster which we had missed. I didn’t want to at all, but conceded in the interests of World Peace! He enjoyed his beer, I didn’t want any and kept falling asleep. (Later, he did say how he appreciated me going along with him although I really didn’t want to.) It was 9.15pm before we left there to collect our bikes at Burnham in the pitch dark, and 11.30pm before we got back to Isleham – thank goodness tomorrow is a rest day!

Sunday, April 20, 2003

Walk 62 -- Rochford to Burnham-on-Crouch

Ages: Colin was 60 years and 347 days. Rosemary was 58 years and 124 days.
Weather: Fine and sunny, but the bitterly cold wind was still with us.
Location: Rochford to Burnham-on-Crouch.
Distance: 11½miles (including the ferry which had been suspended).
Total distance: 415½ miles.
Terrain: Almost entirely grass river banks again.
Tide: Coming in.
Rivers to cross: No.17, the River Crouch at Burnham-on-Sea.
Ferries: No.3 across the Crouch to Burnham-on-Sea, except that it was no longer running as from the beginning of 2003! To save ourselves nigh on 30 miles of extra walking, we decided to change the rules and count it as if we had travelled on it.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: Nos.63 and 64 at the beginning of the walk, nos.65 and 66 at Paglesham Eastend and no. 67 at Paglesham Churchend.
Pubs: None, because the ‘real ale’ pub at Paglesham Churchend was shut at 4 o’clock on this Easter Sunday afternoon when we passed nearby – (CRAZY! These Sunday opening hours!)
‘English Heritage’ properties: None.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: None. (We decided the 4 miles of public footpath on Wallasea Island – surely the most boring piece of map in existence – followed by 4 miles retracing our steps was a dead end we did not have to walk if we didn’t want to – and we didn’t!)
How we got there and back: We drove – with bikes on the back of the car – from Isleham to the marina on Wallasea Island. We had to park half a mile back in the road because everywhere was ‘private’. We cycled back to Rochford and chained our bikes to a post right by the spot where we had parked our car for the last walk.
At the end, I was very tired and Colin was annoyed because he had missed the pub and the one at the marina ‘only sold keg!’ As I could only walk slowly, I suggested Colin fetch the car and meet me at the pub while I rested at a picnic table. He faffed around for nearly half an hour by which time I was absolutely frozen! In a very bad mood, we drove back to Rochford to retrieve our bikes and have some tea and biscuits. We then drove back to Isleham in Cambridgeshire where we were staying with Paul & Caroline. I didn’t get warm until we were nearly there.

Today is Easter Sunday. There was very little traffic on the road early on, and we had already bought our lunch so we didn’t have to stop at a shop. As a result, we set up the walk and actually started striding out as early as 11.30am – is this a record? However, it was a very boring walk almost entirely along river banks – no sight nor sound of the sea – and in a wiggly line which reminded us of jigsaw puzzles again. Despite the fine weather, it was extremely cold so we had to keep moving. There was one ‘real ale’ pub accessible from our route about four-fifths of the way round, but it wasn’t open when we cycled near it and closed again by the time we reached it on the hike – this put Colin in a very bad mood. Altogether, we didn’t much enjoy today’s walk.
We walked across a field to a restored pond, then turned right down to the river bank again. We had walked along the other side of this same river two days ago, so there was nothing much new to see. At one point we came across a mallard’s nest with ten eggs in it, but apart from the occasional common bird, that was the sum total of our wildlife sightings. There were a few people about because it was a holiday, but they all seemed to be able to walk a lot faster than us. Perhaps it was the cold wind which spurred them on.
At Paglesham Eastend there was a small boatyard where people were banging about repairing their craft, and two hairy dogs got very excited as we passed. We walked round in a big loop, and by the time we reached the point where we could have diverted to the pub it was already gone 3 o’clock – crazy these archaic pub opening hours we still keep to in this idiotic country of ours. It is Easter Sunday, a public holiday for goodness sake!
The way led up across a field to the road which went across a short causeway on to Wallasea Island – the most uninteresting place in the whole of the British Isles! It contains an Ordnance Survey map square which must surely take the prize for being the most boring in the whole system – it’s detail being two parallel ditches from north to south and one track from east to west! The causeway was marginally more interesting because the tide was in and water was lapping the sides of the road.
We passed within a whisker of the car, but because we were tired and wanted to finish the walk quickly we were very good and marched straight past it along the raised river bank adjacent to the caravan site to the marina. Whether we were strictly following ‘the nearest safe path to the coast’ at this point is a bit of a grey area. The path along the river bank anticlockwise round Wallasea Island is not a public right of way. Technically, I suppose we should have walked about a mile on the road to the end of the tarmac, retraced our steps for half a mile, then trespassed along the private road leading to the marina – but based on the fact that Wallasea Island is the most boring place on earth, we took the quickest and easiest route to the marina! There is a public footpath which continues beyond the marina in a clockwise direction round Wallasea Island and suddenly comes to an end nearly four miles further on – that’s eight miles extra walking for nothing! (Looking at the map, it probably once connected to a ferry to Foulness Island before the Army took over the place.) So we remembered additional rule no.2, made up another additional rule about tedious maps and did what we did.
We had already reccied out the ferry at Burnham-on-Crouch – it stopped running at the end of last year! To have walked along the river bank to the first bridging point, then back again the other side would have meant adding nigh on thirty miles to our trek. So we made up another rule about ferries which are marked on maps but don’t exist for real, and finished the walk there and then. We were both tired and cold, and Colin was in a very bad mood because we had missed the pub.

That ended Walk no.62, we shall pick up Walk no.63 next time at Burnham-on-Crouch where the ferry used to come in. I made a tentative suggestion that we go in the pub at the marina because it was open and it would have been nice and warm inside, but I was told in no uncertain terms that it ‘only sold keg!’ As I could only walk slowly, I then suggested that my better half fetch the car and meet me at the pub while I rested at a picnic table. He faffed around for nearly half an hour by which time I was absolutely frozen! In a very bad mood, we drove back to Rochford to retrieve our bikes and have some tea and biscuits. We then drove back to Isleham in Cambridgeshire where we were staying with Paul & Caroline. I didn’t get warm until we were nearly there.