Day 1 Isle of Sheppey and Herne Bay

It's a long time since I last stayed on a 'commercial' campsite rather than a Guide one but thankfully we made the right choice with a quiet caravan and camping club site down a very long track set well away from the road. I'm sitting in the dark with only my phone and a citronella candle for light, enjoying the proper dark as opposed to the orange glow of nighttime in London.

We headed off to the Isle of Sheppey for our first beaches this morning and hit Sheerness as the temperatures soared to 30 degrees. Luckily there was a good sea breeze so it wasn't unbearable. We decided that we didn't have time to linger so hurriedly built our first two sand castles, forced ourselves to eat ice creams and pressed on down the coast.

 The tide was out so the next beach (just east of Sheerness??) had better sand but  also a flat beach and a lot of very soft mud. Pretty yuck but despite low tide we managed to get our feet wet in the sea.

It was scorchingly hot by this stage - 34deg - so a quick drive through Leysdown-on-Sea was enough to say that we'd been there and had ticked off the Isle of Sheppey. Interesting discussions with Molly about the difference between river mouths, deltas and estuaries and the history of import/export shipping from London. 

Pitching camp in the searing heat of late afternoon was a heck of a lot easier than with a whole heap of newbie Guides and we were grateful for a pitch under the trees affording us a degree of shade in the evening sunlight.

The highlight of our day had to be swimming at high tide at Herne Bay at sunset, thank you Molly for your eagerness to get in there, perfect way to cool off at the end of the day!

Herne Bay at sunset. Planting our LaSER sandcastle flags in pebble piles

Bubblegum ice cream at Sheerness