The forecast for Sunday 21st October suggested a dry sunny day – provided you were west of London! So Wheelers headed east to Essex and donned their waterproofs…. 21 assembled at Liverpool Street station with a further two joining at Stratford keen to explore the end of the world that is Dengie Marshes. We disembarked from a rather crowded train (well it was once we had all got on) at Wickford and set off in two groups to ease crowd control and allow all those who needed to visit the station facilities.

The two groups met up near Woodham Ferrers but divided again to tackle the only real hill of the day - 200 feet - for a somewhat grey view over the Crouch estuary. Quiet lanes gave way to a section of busier roads around Cold Norton and Latchingdon but sadly there are no easy alternative routes for this section. As we left the busiest section behind us, the leading and slightly faster group took a detour to St Lawrence to look at the (grey) Blackwater estuary, giving the tail-enders a chance to catch up before the group arrived at Bradwell Waterside for lunch. Two options were available – the village pub and the marina bar – and the group split almost equally between the two. I chose the marina and they offered a good selection of lunch staples such as baked potatoes and toasted baguettes. We were entertained by a young kitten that had a great time swinging on and playing with pannier straps whilst outside the window we watched the weather and the boats.

Suitably fortified, we set off for the ancient St Peters Chapel. It’s a fascinating place, still a consecrated chapel but happily left open for visitors to enjoy (and take shelter in) – I guess the remote location and the last 200 metres down a bumpy track puts off the vandals. From there we retraced our steps (or wheel revolutions) to Bradwell and then headed south over the Dengie Marshes. For the first time in the day we had the fairly strong wind on our backs which made a nice change. Still in two groups, we cycled small lanes and farm tracks to Burnham on Crouch, with Owen transferring neatly from one group to the other whilst he fixed the second puncture of the day. As we arrived in Burnham, the rain had become a bit persistent so a tea stop was a more popular option than looking around the town. We crowded into the Cabin Dairy café and conveniently occupied the 55 minutes to the next train home eating cake and drinking tea (which Wheelers always do so well). We all fitted fairly easily onto the local shuttle train to Wickford, and then were the beneficiaries of a surprisingly good customer service experience as the driver of the Liverpool St train patiently waited for all of us to struggle over the footbridge to make the advertised connection.

All in all rather a grey sort of day, grey cloud or drizzle all day, but as we said "much more atmospheric"!

The slightly speedier group visit St Lawrence on the Blackwater estuary.

At St Peters chapel near Bradwell-on-sea.

42 miles
2 punctures
0 fallers (or at least no-one admitted to it!)