Log No 325. Sun 25th May 2014 - Southend-on-Sea to Battlesbridge, 22 miles (5022 miles walked)

The earliest train we could catch back to Southend was 08.30 so we got a bit of a lie in.

It was good weather with a stiff offshore wind keeping it cool as we started walking at 09.15.

I don't know which seaside resort has the longest pier but Southend Pier must be one of the longest, it looks to be about 2000m in length.

(It turns out it is the longest in the world at 1.34 miles / 2.16 km)

We walked along the sea front dodging the usual joggers & cyclists and watched some hardy souls taking part in a swimming event, it looked a struggle in the high tide and strong wind.

The sailing club also had a series of races on the go, one boat had capsized but the sailor just seemed content to stand on the centre board, he didn't look to be making any effort to right it.

All this next bit of coast now is all rivers and creeks and islands. There is a footpath round most of the embankments but to walk all of this to the campsite at Battlesbridge would be 52 miles and take me 3 days.

This is not my idea of the coastline so we would be taking a shorter inland route.

The route was mainly minor roads with the odd footpath through fields.

Mick had decided we would only need two breaks today as we were only carrying light packs and we took our first one after 2 hours at Great Wakering, it was a good break though of 25 minutes, I normally make do with a 10 minute break.

I saw something new today, one of the fields we passed had two folk Kite Boarding using what looked like skate boards on the grass.

We had to amend our planned route a couple of times when we couldn't get access along a private road and one footpath was completely overgrown.

Our second break was taken just after we went through Rochford and the final section was all roads, skirting round Ashingdon and Hockley, going through the outskirts of Hullbridge to finally get over Long Reach, part of the River Crouch, at Battlesbridge and back to the campsite for 16.45.

It was 22 miles today and without full rucsacs should have been easy enough but the late start made it feel quite tiring, or maybe I'm just needing a proper rest day.