News

On Sunday 25 July a 13 km walk took place around the perimeter of Mersea Island as part of London 2012 Open Weekend and the Essex Rural Community Fund.

20 people participated ranging in age from 21 to 75 all kitted out with London 2012 Open Weekend stickers they set out at 09.15 getting interviewed by Mersea Courrier on the way! 

One of walk organisers Keith Banks reported:

"The weather was ideal for walking being a little overcast and cool and made good progress for the first 5 miles over overgrown terrain, to our first scheduled stop at the nature reserve at Cudmore Grove. Totally unplanned, we were met by a group of Gurkhas from the Colchester area who were have their annual fun day and BBQ, they were delightful people and wished us well. Maybe if we were to do this sort of thing again we could get them to participate.

The twitchers amongst us were busy bird spotting, In total we saw 16 species or birds ranging from buzzards to reed warblers.

Our next stop for lunch was just past the halfway mark, by which time it was beginning to warm up and legs were getting a bit tired but everone was in good spirits and we pushed on over the second half.

This part of the circuit contained quite a lot of beach walking which heavy going and our pace slowed and by the time we reached our next rest at West Mersea it would have been easy to stop at a pub and not move on. However we resisted the temptation and pushed on over a long and hot final 2 miles and returned to the Strood at 3pm, hot and very tired but pleased we had all made the effort.

We all enjoyed the walk, our oldest participant was the first to finish and our youngest the last, who went home and slept for the rest of the afternoon!

We would like to thank the Essex Legacy for 2012 for their support. We all had a good time and hopefully we can participate in something similar next year."