15 May 2016 The Lodge, Kingsford, near Colchester, Essex

Our last day in the Colchester area has been well spent, although we did not reach every place on the list. Alas there are only so many hours in the day and so much energy in the body. Had we ventured out from camp earlier, we might have done better but we did not, and that is a fact. Instead we stuffed around with booking advance camp sites, and with that effort and further this afternoon, I can report we are now scheduled more than two weeks in advance. This is so not the way we normally operate, however we have accepted that there is yet another Bank Holiday at the end of this month, and this is the UK where people seem to be less spontaneous than we from DownUnder.

Lunch packed in our eski, we headed north east to Harwich, the departure point for the ferry across to the Hook of Holland, which brought up memories for Chris, when he and his first wife Olga, together with Olga’s sister Sonya and brother-in-law Joop , headed off for an event-filled sojourn in the Netherlands and France, one that saw Chris and Olga huddling in an open air terminal mid-winter waiting for the return ferry, totally skint with their funds marooned somewhere between England and France.  In fact this area, or more particularly, Colchester, has brought many memories back to Chris, when he returned from Australia for the first time with his wife-to-be, to stay near his parents, his father then working for the Defence Department in communications here, and five months of hard work, so much so that he actually recognised very little here in the city; working dawn to dusk, mostly in Chelmsford, six days a week does that.

The ferry leaves from Parkeston, a little upriver from Harwich, across the River Stour from Shotley Gate. From the mouth of the river so often portrayed in Constable’s great artwork but in a more gentle rural setting, we parked up and looked across to Felixstowe, Britain’s busiest container port and one of the largest in Europe. Over three thousand ships call here each year, including the largest container vessels afloat today.

Beach Huts at Harwich

Harwich has been an important port across the centuries but is now more of a seaside town, incorporating Dovercourt and Parkeston. I was quite surprised on rounding the southern head to find a sandy beach complete with rows of beach huts stretching up along the sandy shore, that all divided up by groynes to retain the sand. This is, after all, the North Sea, which is renowned to be savage, and has, further north, wiped out miles of cliff top and hinterland by its sheer force. Today there were only a few swimmers and occupants of the strange funny little huts; most of our fellows were walking their dogs, or riding their bikes or tricycles, or simply ambling along like us.

We drove south, cutting a little inland on routes commandeered by a cycle race, but fortunately for our own peace and sanity, being ridden in the opposite direction to our own route.  We emerged again on the coast at Walton-on-the-Naze, a similar coastal scene to that further north. I had hoped that we might be able to park at the end of the Naze and wander up along the wild southern head of Hamford Water. I had visions of boardwalks and birds and all manner of natural attractions; instead we found a formal car park complete with parking meter and no evidence that there was little else on offer. Now I may have been mistaken, that I confess, but I shall never know because Chris decided that this was just-another-rip-off, and I was not of a mind to argue.

After all, the sun was shining despite the forecast, and out of the wind, the temperatures were most pleasant. Back at Walton-on-the-Naze, we found a free park, found a spot in a park to enjoy our lunch, then wandered about for half an hour or so before resuming our tikki tour.

Further south, we emerged once more on this coast that our guide book daringly calls the Essex Sunshine Coast, now at Clacton-on-Sea. This is Essex’s answer to Great Yarmouth and Blackpool, but not a patch on either according to my husband who has memories of both seaside meccas. We parked about a mile north-east of the pier, clearly in view, although the sounds of the place still inaudible.

Clacton Pier

What a place! I have seen these seaside piers and arcades in movies over the years, but nothing prepared me for the reality. And while it was Sunday, a day for family and leisure, it is still only spring and the frantic fever of seaside holiday hysteria is far off. All I can say is that I am pleased to have called now rather than in June or July, and that New Zealand does not have anything like it. 

There on the Clacton Pier  were roller coasters, merry-go-rounds,  go-carts, bowling,  arcade games galore, sideshow attractions, casino, fruit machines, grab-a-teddy-bear, and on and on and on, all accompanied by a cacophony of sound. Even beyond the extensive area of games and entertainment, at the end of the pier where we saw several fishermen dangling their lines hopefully in the sea, the distracting music was still audible. We discovered to our great amusement that these fishermen have paid an annual fee to the Clacton Pier Fishing Club or a day’s fee of £5 and that they cannot be under 18 unless they are accompanied by a paying adult.

Of course we had to have the obligatory ice cream, excellent too, but we did not bother to ride on the roller coaster or try our luck at the shooting gallery.

Leaving the pier and climbing the stairs up into the town proper, I was amazed to find the immediate streets full of even more gaming parlours. It is this mad industry that supports the economy of the town, although according to a local sage, most of those who operate these activities are Polish or similar. The local lads simply cannot be bothered to rouse themselves from their couches for the wages offered.

This same sage accosted us further up the street; he and several others were actively campaigning for the No Vote for the upcoming election. This has been headlines in all the media during our time here, and even before; whether it is wiser for the United Kingdom to stay or leave the EU. Every day there is someone of great status explaining to the confused public why it is absolutely imperative that they do, or they don’t. The election is to be held on 23 June and I can only hope that the voters have sorted the wood from the trees by then. 

We made our way back through the surprisingly large township and to the car, deciding that the afternoon was too advanced for carrying on down to Mersea Island, another to-do while in the area. But I was adamant that we should not give up just yet, suggesting that we try to find the Information Centre for the Abberton Reservoir, the signs spotted close to our camp. I had seen the reservoir on the map; it looked an interestingly large body of water, one to be explored further.

Our route took us only about three miles south of our camp, through the rather charming village of Layer-de-la-Haye, and there we came upon the lake and a rather impressive Centre.

In 1935, due to an increasing demand for water, the South Essex Waterworks Company obtained powers through an Act of Parliament to undertake a major project utilising the River Stour on the Essex / Suffolk border and to purchase 3,000 acres of land for the construction of the reservoir here in the natural valley of Layer Brook, chosen because of the London clay beneath the ground and its location to the River Stour. 

The Centre at Abberton Reservoir

Construction started in 1836 and continued until the war in 1939. All the buildings and foliage within the reservoir area was removed and the top soil scraped off and used to re-profile the sides, just as conservation methods are insisted upon today. Of the eleven miles of reservoir edge, eight and a half miles were covered by concrete with a slope of one in three, which reached ten feet below the water’s surface when the reservoir was full.

During the war years, the area around the Abberton Reservoir had its share of air raid activity, resulting in the Layer-de-la-Haye treatment works being painted in camouflage colours. The Ministry of Defence felt that the reservoir posed a risk as a landing site for invading seaplanes, so placed 312 floating mines in a grid pattern across the reservoir, held in place by steel cables attached to concrete blocks.

Further, and aside from this, the RAF used Abberton Reservoir to practice low-level flying in preparation for the “Dambusters” attacks during the Second World War. The famous raid itself took place in May 1943, when RAF Lancaster bombers used bouncing bombs to breach the Mohne and the Eder dams, causing catastrophic flooding of Germany’s Ruhr and Eder valleys.

At the end of the war, the mines on the reservoir were shot by soldiers; the majority of them exploded but a number were simply holed and sank. In 1991 the reservoir was at its lowest level since being filled, due to the dry weather, and twenty two mines were exposed on the edges of the receding water; the army was called in to detonate them, a bit like the bomb discovered  in Bath which has also made front page news in the past week. Before construction work to enlarge the reservoir began in 2010, a diving survey was carried out and the reservoir was given a clearance certificate.

Today the reservoir supports drinking water supplies to 1.5 million people. The Essex supply area includes the major towns of Chelmsford, Brentwood, Witham and Southend-on-Sea, and the London Boroughs of Havering , Redbridge and Barking & Dagenham. The reservoir is owned and operated by Essex & Suffolk Water, part of Northumbrian Water Group.

The reservoir is now designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Ramsar Site and a Special Protection Area. Approximately 30,000 birds visit the site annually including nationally important numbers of thirteen species.

We ventured into the Centre, and found it to be all about birds, and as we wandered about a short distance of the the many long paths , we encountered real twitchers, not amateurs like us. They were all armed with serious telescopic lens cameras and spoke in twitcher tongues that made us feel very foreign. We were most taken with this fabulous spot as you will have guessed, and thought it a place to pass a full day rather than a short visit at the end of an already full day.

Back at camp, we found our hosts just finishing up their busy day doing maintenance; the lawns were all mown, the hedges and shrubs pruned and the whole place was looking very tidy indeed. We were able to tell them honestly that we had passed another excellent day in their home city and surrounds.