Southend-on-sea

We had 2-3 weeks of a summer spell recently and for one of the weekends, we brought Izzy and Gabriel to the beach!  Thanks to Cocomelon, these days Izzy will ask me if we were going to the beach, or going camping, or building a campfire.  Finally we could tell her that we were going to the beach!

Just arrived and all smiles

Eating nuggets and chips

On a deckchair

"The beach, the beach, the beach yeah... " sang Izzy

To get to a beach, we would have to drive to the far eastern coast in Kent which is about 1.5-2h away, or down south to Brighton which we know is a pebbly beach.  Out of nowhere, K suggested driving across the river Thames, into Essex and then eastwards towards Southend-on-sea.  This place looks like fun, with an Adventure Island theme park, and the beach looks sandy instead of pebbly.  We debated for a while -Kent or Essex - and finally we thought we should explore somewhere which we have not been before, so off to Southend we went.  Which on hindsight, was a wonderful choice.  The kids experienced a sandy beach for the first time, and had fun building sandcastles and doing sandplay.

At Adventure Island

The crowd

The weather was sunny and windy so not too hot.  Adventure Island is a good concept, a theme park by the beach, but it was too crowded for my Covid liking.  We weren't able to social distance, and certain areas were crammed shoulder-to-shoulder.  Bit scary!  With the easing of lockdown, and with the speedy vaccination programme in place, people are getting rather complacent.  In any case, we didn't spend too much time there as the rides were mostly for older kids and adults.  Eventually it was either a case of Izzy not in the mood for that particular ride, or she didn't meet the minimum height requirement.  For good or bad, it's quite clear she hasn't inherited K's love for theme park rides!  

Sitting by the beach

It was lunchtime once we arrived, so we parked and looked around for food options.  Well, well, well... there were easily six to eight fish and chips places in one stretch, some next to the other!  Talk about competitors.  Of course, we would settle for one situated by the beach, bought a takeaway and found a spot on the sandy beach.  However the kids were more keen on playing in the sand and barely ate.  We then explored Adventure Island after that.  K upgraded our tickets to include the aquarium visit so we made sure we had some time for that too.  Not forgetting an ice cream pit stop in between, much to Izzy's delight.

After much pestering by Izzy..

Finding Nemo

Where's Dory?

Sandplay

Picked some seashells

Endless fish and chip shops

Looking like a big boy here

We finally packed up and left at around 6pm, wondering what to do for dinner as we didn't want another round of fish and chips.  We settled for Shake Shack at Lakeside Shopping Centre, which was kinda on the way home.  By then the kids were exhausted and napped on the way to Lakeside.

Crossing Dartford crossing back into Kent

Sunset at almost 9pm

All in all, a fun and fulfilling day spent at the beach.  Next time we will bring more appropriate clothing and footwear.