The last day of our holiday proper (if you don’t include the weekends), and the promise of good weather meant only one thing – a trip to the seaside. And there are plenty sprinkled on the Essex coastline, but we chose the stretch of sometimes rocky, sometimes sandy shore from Clacton to Walton via Frinton as our seaside destination, not least because we could potentially walk from one town to the other. That actually turned out to not be the case in the time we alloted to the task, and a mix of circumstances meant that we only got as far as Frinton, somewhere mid-way between the two.
Strolling on the shoreline path, the wind was fierce at times, but the sun was hot, shimmering on the sea to our right an catching the blades of the wind turbines in the distance. So hot was the sun, the side of my neck on which it was shining turned a distinct shade of red, proving that we have had something of a summer after all. The walk from Clacton to Frinton took around two hours (much longer than we’d anticipated), and once we’d got past all the beach huts with their sea vistas that litter the eastern Essex coast, we’d earned our greasy-ish spoon café lunch of egg, chips and tea.
Why only as far as Frinton, though? That longer than expected walk, which meant that we wouldn’t make it back in time to the car park in Clacton, running the risk of a clamp. So tight was time, we couldn’t even just stroll back from Frinton, without carrying onto Walton and then doing the whole route in reverse. So, we misguidedly bought train tickets back to from Frinton, and then realised that we’d misinterpreted the train timetable, and the next service was too late. Plan B involved the local bus, which to be fair, took us back into Clacton town centre – where we had to run to the car park – but we paid a steep £7.00 between us for the privilege. More (walking) speed next time.
