Central London CTC blog

We were seven setting off for the Essex hinterland on a bright and breezy Saturday morning. Nick, John, Camille, Dennis, Helen, Seth and myself.
The weather was beautiful all day although somehow we ended up with a headwind for the whole ride as the wind swung round to the west at lunchtime. A difficult day to dress for I thought, not quite warm enough for just a short-sleeved top, but too warm for much else.
We esentially did a convoluted loop of the Blackwater peninsular, most of which was good but the traffic, even on the smaller roads, is an issue in this area and its not really possible to avoid going on a couple of stretches which are slightly too busy to be fun.
The section through the marshes is the best bit I think, the landscape is deeply sinister and faintly unsettling but gives long, flat views out to the sea. Lunch was a beautiful outdoor setting overlooking the Crouch estuary and what John assured us was one of the poshest yacht clubs in the country. My vegetable lasagne was pretty average to be honest but those who had the more meat and two veg based options seemed to have fared better.
Camille’s cunning double cheese sandwich approach was a good move, displaying impressive lateral thinking in the face of an uninspiring menu. We made a tea stop at the cafe overlooking Hanningford reservoir where ice cream and tea cakes were had. The clever gadgets gave us distances just either side of 100km and a jolly nice time was had by all.