So armed with my book on piers and my brit stop guide for overnight camping, Colin (the camper van! don't ask) and I set off for our first weekend foray for the project. On arriving in Southend the first action was to find somewhere to park, luckily the Council are very accommodating in this respect and there was lots of easily accessible on street parking near to the main event; the world's longest pier!
So after a bit of wandering about, I visited the old Kursaal, Southend's 100 year old purpose built amusement park. Now sadly empty and looking in a sorry state but great for images if you can get the light right, I went back to the pier to look for possible shots and to soak up the atmosphere! As these are still COVID affected times the atmosphere consisted of a few groups of not too socially distancing groups of drinkers outside some of the local pubs and a couple of random families eating fish and chips. Taste testing fish and chips is also part of my project and so purely for scientific reasons and for Photoclub Projects, I enjoyed a large portion of Huss and chips (score rating 4 out of 5) before settling down for the night. The weather was grey and raining so no blue hour shots were possible and part from the large number of boy racers who appeared out of nowhere late in the evening, the night past uneventfully.
The next date up bright and early to find more rain and no clouds other than greyness I purchased my ticket to the world's longest pier opting to walk out and ride back on the little train which is also part of the attraction. The pier is 1.34 miles in length and with the tide out makes for a nice but fairly boring walk, lots of expanses of mud flats and some cockle fisherman in the distance, otherwise not much else. The coast of Kent seems almost within touching distance as you look towards the end of the pier and once at the end does look incredibly close. The pier end is a mixture of rides, mainly closed at the moment, coffee/tea/ice cream huts and a main bar, restaurant currently under refurbishment. There is an RNLI station at the very end which shares its position with the fisherman.
The pier is certainly worth a visit and has lots of history which is displayed in a small museum at the entrance to the pier, it was not open on the day of my trip so another visit is required I think?
