The Broomway

On Saturday night, CBC and I went out for a late cycle.  We left home at 7pm. We were going to do the Barling Loop- Barling is a village near Southend which has beautiful Christmas lights and CBC wanted to show me the cycle. It was beautiful and cool but then CBC decided to extend our ride.  However, when we got there, he decided to extend our cycle to Shoeburyness.  As we were going, we saw a sign to Foulness Island, so we decided to follow the signs and go and see if we could go to the edge of the water to see the start of the Broomway at the Wakering Stairs.

The Broomway is dubbed as "the most perilous byway in England"  It has gained this notoriety by how disorientated those who walk it can get especially if the conditions are poor and the fact that you are pretty much sure to drown if you are still out on the sands when the tide comes in.  Over 100 people die a year on it.

To reach it, we had to enter MoD land and ask to go through a barrier to reach the Wakering Stairs.  The roads leading to here beyond the barrier were totally empty and it was really surreal.

When you reach the Wakering Stairs, you find the start of the Broomway.  It's situated on the Maplin Sands and in theory all traffic can use it.  It was the only foot access to MoD-owned Foulness island until a road bridge was built in 1922 over the Havengore Creek.

The Broomway is 6 miles long and goes through the Maplin sands 400m from the shoreline.  Both the river Roach and Crouch meet here causing dangerous whirlpools when the tide comes in. Here's a BBC article about it here.

You can read more of the history of it here and I've linked to Googlemaps here so you can see how the causeway really does go out to sea, as it were.

When we reached the steps, the tide was completely out and it really did feel like we were in a nuclear wasteland! It was so utterly quiet and still.

This is the beginning of the path out- I walked on it for about 15metres and then got scared when the sands got swampy and walked back!

It was really exciting to have finally come to see it at last after scrutinizing it on the map before and all the more so, because we weren't expecting to do this!

We had to continue on our journey as it was getting darker and we needed to get home.  We headed towards Shoebury East Beach as CBC wanted to see what East Beach was like.  Unfortunately, this was a silly decision as I managed to get a puncture. Usually this would not be a problem, CBC could change my inner-tube but for three things:

1.  When we went to Norfolk, he just discovered that when they did his adjustments, they didn't replace his little tool bag that sits under his saddle which has Allen keys, spare inner-tubes and tyre lever.

2.  The spare inner-tube in my bag had a puncture in it.

3.  I had forgotten to pick up my rucksack as we left so I had absolutely nothing with me!

At Gunners park entrance, CBC decided to cycle home to go and pick up the car and to come and collect me. As I didn't have a phone, he told me to just keep walking along the seafront but stop when I reached the Kursaal.  

I did that, wheeling along my bike with a very sloshy back tyre. It was about 3miles from there to the Kursaal and it took quite a long time.  I saw lots of people and enjoyed hearing the sounds of the sea but I was sad not to be able to complete my cycle ride.  As time went on, I became worried in my head as it had got dark almost immediately after CBC left me and I was fretting about him having absolutely no lights and having to take the back roads back home which are used as a ratrun and have no lights. I prayed fervently, as I walked, that CBC would be ok.  It seemed such a long time and I was worried.  Amazingly enough, about 4 minutes after I reached the Kursaal, he pulled up in his car!  

Here's a photo from Gunners Park.

It was an adventure, definitely!  Perhaps, a bit more forward-planning might have been better for this but I certainly enjoyed visiting these places I've never seen before!

I found a video of people walking the Broomway here:

Have you ever walked along a causeway or a dangerous path?

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