Features
Two go off on a bike in the country
ON Your Bike - Essex, does just what it says on the tin! This easy to follow guide book unlocks the cycling secrets of the
county's sleepy backwaters, offering a countryside escape to silent car free lanes, pretty cottages and quaint pubs.
South Essex is notoriously bad for cycle paths, with Southend seafront offering the mandatory narrow lick of kerb side paint, which acts as an irresistible magnet for motors. While the longest track, along the A127, between Southend and Basildon, is an obstacle course of broken tyre hungry glass, rusting jettisoned exhaust pipes and busy road crossings.
Quite unbelievable when you consider the Olympic big-wigs have earmarked Hadleigh Castle Country Park as an outdoor cycling venue for 2012.
But it is still possible to head out of the clogged up streets of suburbia and find a relaxing track of two wheeled therapy, which is still very close to home.
You may not have heard, but this is National Bike Week - designed to get people back in the saddle for health and environmental benefit - and I decided to do my bit by allowing On Your Bike to guide me along one of its 20 cycle tracks to tranquillity.
The chosen route was the Dengie Peninsula trail - a 21 mile trundle around country roads, tiny villages and marsh land surrounded by the Rivers Crouch and Blackwater.
Joining me on my journey was Dan Williams, 27, of Prittlewell, who had decided to tag along as part of his training for the London Triathlon, on Sunday, August 10, which he is competing in to raise money for the Little Havens Hospice, in Thundersley.
Jumping on a once an hour train from Wickford to the route's starting point, 20 minutes down track to the end of the line at Southminster, was a pleasant enough experience.
Grass munching sheep gazed up at the Crouch Valley Line train on one side, while the skinny naked masts of sail boats towered above the banks of the Crouch through the opposite window, before offering up sneaked peeks of its quiet grey unrippled waters.
Big ringed snouts and much smaller wet noses greeted us outside Southminster station at 2pm, as we prepared to follow the B1021 out of town to Asheldham.
A double load of bulls, cows and calves stared miserably through the open grills of an agricultural truck as it waited for traffic to pass, politely offering us a leaking brown, pungent smell of the country trail to follow.
It was only a 10 minute pedal to a quiet red poppy bordered country road, with wooden signs hammered into little banks advertising everything from fresh asparagus, to horse tack, animal feed and organic farm food. There were even bull's eggs on sale. Whatever they were!
Gliding along deathly silent tarmac with only the sound of singing birds and the rustle of the breeze for company, Asheldam village's picture post card church flashed past, while three repair men inside the grounds of a public weighbridge were lifted on to a moss covered warehouse roof by crane bucket.
Skirting around Dengie, the road width shrunk to the size of little more than one car, arrowing through the centre of lifeless freshly cut meadows, with abandoned combine harvesters and tractors snoozing in the sun.
Dan's observational musings finally broke 20 minutes of silence: "Blimey. I didn't realise just how countrified it was out here," he said. "It's so quiet and there's nobody about. If you ever wanted to murder someone, this would definitely be the place to bring the bodies." Dengie constabulary, please take note!
The road snaked past a beware of cats sign - with a black witch's moggy, possessing two Satanic coals for eyes, painted inside an angry red triangle - before slithering into a lush green dominated village, which could easily pass as a Midsomer Murders setting. There was no John Nettles to be seen, so Dan might have got away with it!
Tillingham was a picturesque collection of weatherboarded houses, the compulsory scary church, surrounded by trees and decaying grave stones, plus numerous pubs, with the Caps and Feathers the only one open midweek before 5pm and serving up a lovely hot pie.
Back on a deserted road, the route bent towards Bradwell, past thatched white cottages and down a crude bone-shaker of pot-holed path to the time defying St Peter's chapel, which stares out across the Blackwater, towards the painted beach huts of Mersey Island.
Constructed out of stones recycled from the site's former Roman fort Othona, St Cedd sailed down south from his monastery at Lindisfarne (Holy Island) in Northumberland to build the chapel in 654 AD at the invitation of Sigbert, King of the East Saxons.
The wind battered structure still stands proud in almost perfect condition, apart from the odd smashed window, and is still a fully working place of worship and important pilgrim stop-off.
"I doubt my flat in Prittlewell will still be standing in 1,400 years time," laughed Dan. "They don't make them like they used to."
Next up was a three mile bump and grind along the top of the sea wall, parallel to the bleached white shell covered beaches and old rusting barges, next to the dirty dishwater and Green Shield coloured mix of water.
Summer cycling obviously hadn't reached this part of the route yet, as we struggled along the hip high grass on top of the pil box crossing sea wall. I charged through first on my all terrain hybrid, trying to hack a path open for Dan on his wafer thin tyred road racer, which really wasn't suitable for this tough surface (Mental note: Next time bring a machete).
With nostrils full of briny sea air, we passed the dark, stained imposing figure of Bradwell's decomissioned nuclear power station, the only blot on this beautiful spot, before riding past the upturned paint peeling boats of the village's marina and up through the village back on to the main (but dead) road.
Flying past the turn off for St Peter's chapel, as we re-traced our previous pedalling revolutions, the turn-off for Tillingham was ignored, heading on through St Lawrence.
Climbing to the highest vantage point of the trip, next to a church steeple and giant Cornetto shaped grain silo, we were treated to a stunning sweep of the veranda, across the still meadows and dotted settlements on the shrinking Blackwater's opposite banks.
A leisurely 30 minute cycle delivered us back to the relative hustle and bustle of three slow cars in Southminster by just gone 5pm, feeling fully revitalised and relaxed by our short afternoon's escape to Dengie. That was, until we saw the train slowly pulling out of the station at snailpace above our handlebars. Grrrrrrrrrrr! Mental country detox instantly evaporating, I was heading back to Stressville, Surburbia, far too soon!
* You can help Dan Williams raise money for Little Havens by sponsoring him online at http://www.justgiving.com/danielwilliams
* On Your Bike, by Tessa West, is published by Countryside Books (£8.99).
10:01am Tuesday 24th June 2008
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CommentPosted by: Valerie Mainwood, Colchester on 4:11pm Thu 26 Jun 08
Yes, it is a lovely area, but the nuclear power station will take up to 100 years to decommission because radioactivity has to decay - it is with us for some time yet!
Yes, it is a lovely area, but the nuclear power station will take up to 100 years to decommission because radioactivity has to decay - it is with us for some time yet!
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