Log No 328. Wed 28th May 2014 - Tillingham to Maldon, 19 miles (5071 miles walked)

Once again it rained seemingly non stop from yesterday afternoon to when we got up this morning but it had diminished to just being light rain when we took the tents down and set off at 07.20.

From the campsite we took an inland route to get by the River Blackwater, sticking to the road rather than wading through possibly long wet grass of St Peters Way, going through Tillingham to Steeple.

The minor road had been quite busy so from Steeple we did follow SPW and took the footpath to Mayland Creek where we had a break.

We walked on the embankment path to the end of the creek and then along tree lined footpaths to Maylandsea, the rain had ceased now but there was no sign of the weather clearing up.

We had intended staying on SPW to Mundon but we had only been following the path waymarker and we missed a crucial one, walking in the completely opposite direction to what we should have been.

If the sun had been out I would have realised, we hadn't gone too far when we did realise it but just decided to continue and take the slightly longer road route to Mundon.

We took another break just before Mundon, next to a field of horses, Mick was on real friendly terms with one of them. It was only a short break and we had it standing up rather than sit on wet grass.

We continued on the road into Maldon to cross over the River Blackwater, it was one o'clock and we saw a Tescos with a cafe so we took a long comfy break in armchairs with a drink of tea before doing the shopping.

We left Maldon on the bridleway alongside a cut or canal to get to the river bank at Haybridge Basin.

We finished off our lunch there before following the path round the bank for a mile to get to our campsite.

There was still no sign of the weather improving but it remained dry. Mick read in the paper that June is supposed to be wet!

19 miles in just over 7 hours.