Another of those glorious days, perhaps too hot to go exploring but the desire was there, the place had been researched and the car keys hung heavy in my hand; time to get going.
I am, as you might gather, forever staring at maps, reading about areas and planning routes to get there. My focus this time became a spit of land that juts out into the Swale. On one side of the spit you would see the new bridge onto the island and on the other, Dead Man's island and the village of Grain on the other. I was hooked and suggested to my best mate who is also an explorer given half the chance that this would be a good place to go. We could get the car there, park up and then take photographs, have a wander and be generally nosy.
This image had enthralled me; what were the black lines poking out into the Swale? And all those white lines? Were they tracks? A motor cycle playground? And this Leo Bay camping place? Any good?
Too many questions so we set off, food, drink and cameras in hand. Parking up a lot further back along the spit than I thought we could go, we had a look over the bank......Wow! and that was all I could say for the next few minutes, just Wow!
We had arrived whilst the tide was still quite high, so there was water lapping right up to the edge of the bank we were standing on. All I could see was this amazing vista of distant parts of Sheppey, Isle of Grain and beyond. It was about now I realised my binoculars were sitting very comfortably on the kitchen worktop at home! Irritating, because they would have been very useful.
Turning back I looked over to Queenborough and we could see the way in to the harbour there. Two small dingies bobbed about in the water and we noted two spare buoys, oh, no, three in fact. They'd be free mooring there as they would be beached at low tide.
Panning out, the house boat came into view. A small galleon no less with its own sundeck. At one point he came out and sat on his sunlounger, but I did wonder if our presence sent him back on board...or alternatively our presence had brought him out.
The views just went on and on but my next aim was to find that road which so mysteriously vanished behind high fencing just before the Leo Camping place, and the defunct railway line which used to run up here, exporting railway lines to wherever. One of the straight lines out into the Swale that I had seen on the map, was in fact the jetty where the ships would moor up. Originally there were a couple of cranes up there but from all accounts, all traces of them have gone.
It was really starting to get very hot now, the temperature heading back up to 30 degrees and we were beginning to flag, but we followed the path and noted something we wanted to find, a sleeper. The hard core from between the rails was still there and every now and then a piece of an old sleeper would appear in the mud but I would imagine most, if still in one piece and serviceable, went off to be sold as were the original rails which could have been sold for scrap.
The pathway continued and although it was quite arduous to walk along, it was firm and there would be few puddles forming in the winter. One of the people who lived on the houseboats further along the spit kept the walk way open, taking his secateurs with him so he could keep the brambles down and make walking all the more pleasant.
At this point the old railway track vanished into a thicket and a slope was clear for us to go onto the road behind the barriers. This was the one which went to the end of the spit and was the one I had hoped we could take the car along. One of the houseboat people had a motor bike to get about and it became clear, this would be the easiest way up and down because you could go down the bank just in front of the gates and then back up the slope as we had done on foot.
Everywhere you looked there were butterflies and other insects. The guy with the secateurs told me there were two types of orchid on the land somewhere (he didn't say where), slow worms, various reptiles and something else I've since forgotten, but all told this did explain why this is an area of significance. I suspect at breeding time there would be a great number of wild birds coming down and ground nesting.
I noted another cleared slope to my left and wandered up to the top to see what was in that direction, and there it was, the new bridge over the Swale and onto the island. I also noticed a cut pathway....interesting, wonder who that has been done by? Its the sort of path I would expect one of the Ecological trusts to do but am not sure as yet if they own any land out here. As far as I am aware it is owned by Peel Holdings (not sure about second word there, is it Ports?) but I do know one small section at the end is owned by an ecological group.
We wandered a bit further, but to be honest we got hardly anywhere. It was just too hot by now and both of us were hungry. Our trouble is, we need longer than a few hours to do one of our nosy sessions and it was already gone 2pm.
WOW!
No comments:
Post a Comment