Day 22 – Saturday 8 July 2000 - Bradwell to Burnham-on-Crouch

13.5 miles walked today

297 miles walked in total (average 13.5)

Vicky and I left Ashford just after seven o’clock this morning and were parked and booted, ready to walk at nine fifteen.

The first stretch took us past St Peter’s Chapel, or St Peter’s-on-the-Wall, to give it its correct name.  According to the guide book, it was built in about AD 654 by St Cedd, a missionary from Northumbria.  It’s built on the site of the main gateway of Othona, which was abandoned by the Romans in 410.  It’s still used by the Othona Community, a group of people living nearby who live and work for themselves, but are not necessarily religious.  On the first Saturday every July, a pilgrimage is made to the chapel – attracting up to two thousand people on the one and a half mile walk from Bradwell on Sea.

From the chapel, we should have turned right along the wall, but had a slight detour back towards the power station before realising the mistake and heading back the right way.

Past the Bradwell observatory, a birdwatching reserve, the path became very overgrown and, fairly soon, Vicky spotted either a short snake or a long slug!  We spent a lot of time tacking up and down the sea wall to find the least overgrown path.  Usually, the field at the bottom won!

We had lots of sit downs today, which I always enjoy.  And we had lunch at the Grange outfall, although we weren’t sure it was the most hygienic place to sit and eat!

We had a stretch along the wall proper – concrete at last! – and looked out over Dengie Flats where the tide goes out for two miles.  Vicky was on a mission to find out how squidgy the mud was – it looked hard baked from the wall, so Vicky went to explore.  Apparently, it’s very like clay – grey and sticky, possibly consisting of some element of tar.  And also full of snails.

We’ve seen a lot of wildlife today – seagulls, partridge, geese, oyster catchers, llamas (!) and an adder.  The snakes like to lay on the sea wall, sunning themselves and will only attack if surprised.  If they hear you coming, they’ll ignore you.  It couldn’t possibly not hear Vicky and I marching through the undergrowth though!  We watched it for a few seconds before it uncurled itself and slid off into the grass.  I decided at this point that it was probably not a good idea to be wearing my shorts!

There were lots of odd structures as part of the wall – they looked like short squat Martello towers – possibly for military defences.  Vicky, being an engineer type, decided to lower herself head first into one of these – to see what was going on.  They appear to be full of nesting birds.  One of the structures we saw, which we took to be a bird hide, looked very like a space rocket!

The rain started to come down as we walked into Burnham-on-Crouch – our B&B was on the quay and we had already ascertained that it was in Vicky’s Good Pub Guide.  The Olde White Harte was obviously a good choice.