No, I am not going to write about an old Swayze/Reeves film from the 90’s, Point Break for those that don’t know and if you are one of the those you should watch it as soon as possible as it is a classic, but a small town sited at mouth of the River Colne south of the popular Essex seaside town of Brightlingsea and opposite the even more popular Mersea Island. Now I have visited Point Clears neighbouring ‘town, village, resort, campsite’, whatever you want to call the place, St Osyth many times in the past as it used to be a popular venue for me, my dad and my uncles to venture to off a winters evening to fish for the elusive cod. I have also visited St Osyth to take the boys for a nice beach walk and swim in the past, but have not, until this past weekend, visited Point Clear itself even though I have meant to do so many times.
It was breezy and cold when I parked the van in the grassy car park in the middle of Point Clear bay. As mentioned i had not visited before so was unsure what to actually find here but was quite pleasantly surprised to find a nice short run of beach within 10 yards of where I had just parked. Boots on, warm jacket on, bag slung over shoulders, wooly brain cell warmer donned and finally I released the beasts. The boys shot out the van like a pair of laser guided missiles and flew across the empty car park, did a big loop, had a little meet and greet with another pooch then whizzed back to me with tails wagging hard. We walked the short distance to the sea defence before I gave them the command to ‘go on then’ which to them means go play. Straight over the concrete wall and down onto the beach they leapt headed straight to the water for a paddle whilst I took the more sedate route of walking down a small slope to the beach a few yards away.
We opted to walk towards the mouth of the river first but after quarter mile or so you cannot go any further as a fence blocks the way. Just past the fence the spit of land starts that forms the small bay area that can be seen from the beach. I stop along here for a few throws of the ball out into the cold water so the boys could play fetch and have a good swim around. Once they were a little bored with this game we walked back along the beach, past where the van was parked and further along to the small point that I could see ahead. The beach along this stretch was nice na clean and the water was exceptionally clear considering it was estuarine water and also quite windy. The beach ended within a short walk and I had to go up the sea wall slope and walk along the pathway at the top of the sea defence. A couple hundred yards further and a set of steps appeared so I decided to have a wee sit down on them and just enjoy the view.
After my short break I put the boys on their leads and continued along the pathway towards a line of ‘house’ that run along the land side of the sea defence. Rounding the corner there was another small beach area and also a spit of land that ran out into the water pointing towards Brightlingsea on the opposite side of what looked like a lagoon but turned out to be the entrance to Brightlingsea Creek. I have visited Brightlingsea a few times but had not realised that it was so close to Point Clear, it does actually look like you could walk from one to the other but there is a big stretch of marshland that would need negotiating first. Maybe I,ll have a look into whether there is a route between the two places and walk that one day. Walking further along the path I came to a slipway which went down onto a sandy outcrop which allowed for boat launching access so we walked down onto this area and over towards the water. It actually looked quite a nice spot to sit for a while and watch the sea birds do their thing as boats motored up and down in front of me but we did not stay for long as it was time to head back to the van as I had a meeting to attend very soon.
Back up on the sea wall path we marched our way back pasts the houses, down onto the beach and along to where the van was parked. All in all it was a real eye opener of a visit and I will be returning very soon to explore this area in more depth as I am finding out that there is an awful lot of interesting history about Point Clear and the surrounding area and I want to know more………..
