vampyresheep | final days of summer

Maybe I am being greedy, but after such a wonderful long, proper summer (ie one with sunshine), I've been feeling a bit down about the sudden change to gloom and chill of the past couple of weeks, so when the forecast was for better weather last weekend, I wanted to make the most of it with a swimming day trip!
I had been recommended on the Outdoor Swimming Forum on Facebook, to check out a tidal pool in Essex, called Woodup. Looking the area at the map is fascinating enough, it has the feel of being the ends of the country, a place where nobody ventures to! So we decided Sunday would be a good day for an adventure to the depths of Essex.

The drive wasn't too long, around 90 minutes and all looked fairly normal until we reached the fairly surreal inland marina with its quirky old shipping huts and boats on mudflats. Had to turn back to park in the nearest village, then took the 10 minute walk back to the marina and the pool.
a slightly wrong looking Henry 8

Tollesbury

bizarre fishing huts

The Marina (landlocked)

The pool is salt water and filled by the incoming tide, controlled by a sluice gate which flushes the whole pool out every 10 days or so.

On first impression, sitting there by ourselves, we did wonder why we'd come to the ends of the earth to visit a stagnant little pool but soon a few families arrived and set up camp on the beach, so I decided to go for it and strip down to my bathers for a swim.

It was blissful! Once you got into the water, away from the more mossy/algae edges, the water was clean and clear-ish. Although I could imagine over the hot summer it must have got a little murkey but on a slightly sunny day like this, it was perfecto!

Managed to persuade Rob to come into the water for a quick dip too!

He soon had enough, so we stopped for our picnic lunch, whilst all around us families were gathering with barbeques, camping chairs, boats - somewhat more prepared than we were! ;-) It was all quite "Essex" though, watching with amusement two loud, large, bald men covered in gold jewellery (the Mitchell brothers?) attempting to stand on their Paddle Board was more entertaining than any soap opera.

I had a final swim before the water got too busy; didn't fancy colliding with small children paddling full sized kayaks. Rob went to get an icecream (not the one in the photo above but a little stand selling proper local icecream!) but didn't have anything smaller than £20, so the lovely guy running the stall trusted us to come back later to pay when he had some change. Had a bit of a chat with him later, he'd given up his job as a psychiatric nurse to sell icecreams at his local lido instead and absolutely loving it. Asked us how we'd heard about this place and upon realising I was accustomed to outdoor swimming, recommended we waited until the tide came in and then we could swim in the marina too.

That was the awesome thing about this place. In a climate of paranoia and risk of being sued, signs everywhere you go of the dangers of water (Don't swim or you'll die!!), it was such a refreshing change to find a place which had no lifeguards, just trusted people to use their common sense - amusingly with a sign saying that you must not get in the water if there are more than 1000 people in there already. errm, ok! It was also clean and well maintained, the portaloos were imacculate and hardly any rubbish lying around or in the water, a place that was evidently respected by the local community.

Starting to get a bit chilly after the swim we decided to go for a walk and spotted a path that went through the mudflats. Fascinating to go along here and watch the tide come in.

I still couldn't imagine swimming in here as it all looked a bit muddy but when we got back to the marina, I could see what exactly the icecream guy meant - the incoming tide created a perfect natural pool and the mud was actually quite firm. Didn't actually swim as I wouldn't be able to dry off after, plus we figured all the pleasure boats coming in and out of the marina would be a bit risky, but I did have a quick paddle up to my knees at least.

Said our goodbyes to Tollesbury and Woodup, in search of a pub that might be open for food on an early Sunday evening - a challenge in this neck of the woods! I had previously scanned google maps for waterside pubs and spotted Heybridge Basin, on the Blackwater Estuary, which looked interesting and only 15 minutes drive away.

This was such a contrast to Tollesbury. A busy marina with 2 pubs and a cafe, crowded with locals enjoying a sunny Sunday. The pub I'd had in mind had just stopped serving food but the one next to it was serving all day AND had a nice outdoor seating area next to the lock - a bit lively and frenetic but it was good to sit there and watch the boats go past. The food was basic but homemade and pretty good, so it was a worthwhile stop after all!

(pub garden was a lot busier when we first arrived)