Mersea Island Early Weekend - Thursday

An early weekend? What's that?  Well it's a Thursday to Saturday trip that does have one of the weekend days in it!

As usual on a Thursday morning I was at the greyhound rescue foster home a few miles from where I live.  More information on the charity from Kent Greyhound Rescue.

I had only seven dogs to feed and exercise and left the last one in the care of another team member to keep an eye on so I could get home before 11am. Pack the van and get away for the 11.30am start. We just about managed that.

We couldn't get into the site until 3pm according to the paperwork I had printed off after booking. The paperwork actually gives the pitch number as well. We were going to be pitch 59.  

On the way up we made easy progress up the M20 to the M25. Even the hazard and road block that it is the Dartford Crossing, it's a tunnel going north, was relatively easy to navigate. Rather than stop as usual at Thurrock Services we carried on until we were on the A12.  We avoided the disaster services of a previous trip at Mountnessing.  There's barely any parking for cars let alone vans and the "Wild Bean Café" was terrible.

Instead we stopped for a lunch break at the fuel and McDonald's service station just off the A12 at Boreham near Chelmsford.  Reggie had a few walks as they have little grass but a path running between two shrub gardens. We had sandwiches we took with us.

It was sunny and we had a sit down to read to while away some time so that we would arrive around 3pm and also get across the Strood at low tide. The route this time took us off at Kelvedon and through Tiptree. Oddly I had planned a return trip that way to drop into the Tiptree Jam Factory & Museum! At least we saw where it was!

We made good time and got across the Strood with the water very low on the mud flats. As I had forgotten to pack poo-bags for Reggie, we detoured to Tesco in West Mersea and then to Waldegraves.

It was only about 3.10pm when we checked in. Our pitch was easy to find and close enough to the facilities! The touring area was pretty empty although the seasonal pitches further up from the loos etc looked to have quite a lot of caravans.

Once the electricity was connected and the fridge turned on, and I had half filled the fresh water we went over the check out the shop.  With it being March, not all the bars and the takeaway food outlets were open, so we would have had to use the bar in the restaurant.  As it was we had come prepared and I bought a few snacks to eat in the van.

Before it got dark and whilst it was still sunny, we had a walk to the beach. The tide was still out on the southern side of Mersea Island. We could see across the mud flats and across the Blackwater River to the decommissioned Bradwell Nuclear Power Station. It's now owned by the Chinese who want to build another one there.

Bradwell Nuke is the two squares on the right...

The beaches along this part of the island are more like and oysters' graveyard. The shoreline filled with shells, empty sadly, of all shapes and sizes.

There are other things washed up on the shore but mostly shells as the locals keep the beaches clear of  the usual debris and rubbish that gets slung into the sea.

The free WIFI is only available near the reception/bar and shop and our phones had really poor signals. I never got above H+ and Claire fleetingly had 4G so it meant we couldn't watch much on the Amazon Firestick. The paid WIFI was £5 a day, but we couldn't get the Firestick to connect to it.

In the end we read.  It was a relatively quiet evening and night.  Occasionally someone from the seasonal area would drive past us to get to the loos rather than walk.  It was pretty common even.

What to do tomorrow?