It's becoming something of a routine to do a short Sunday morning outing with my wife, when she runs and I walk!
For this morning, my wife had asked me to come up with a 7 mile there-and-back run, preferably on the flat and where she hadn't run before. The answer was the quiet sea wall stretch between Minnis Bay (not far from Margate) and Reculver Towers (the Roman remains) - exactly 3.5 miles each way! I would turn back after 3 miles, meaning that we should get back to the start at roughly the same time.
The route was fairly straightforward! (The track is mine; my wife turned back at Reculver.)
Setting off from Minnis Bay. The near-horizontal windsock shows that the outbound leg would be into the wind. In her day-glow yellow top, my wife is in most of my photos - as is the Roman building in the distance (a speck on the horizon here):
She and a runner in pink went neck and neck for a time...
It wasn't long before the path became the sea wall:
The first of two lagoon areas...
...and this is the other one. I saw lots of birds including egrets, cormorants, swans, oyster catchers, terns, geese and birds of prey.
Reculver Towers is becoming clearer. The waterway is called the Wantsum Channel - it's all that remains of a wide sea channel that once separated the Isle of Thanet from the mainland. The Roman fort guarded one end of the channel.
Much of the reclaimed land is farmed. I spotted a flock of Brent Geese in a field : They took off and flew above me; I tried to take a photo...
Approaching Reculver. This is my 3 mile mark and time to head back:
My wife had started back a few minutes before I did and she passed me when I had about 5 minutes to go. It began to pour with rain just as she finished, so I got soaked and she didn't!
With today's brisk wind I wasn't expecting to record an especially fast pace, but I very was pleased to do 4.4 mph overall (4.2 out and 4.6 back).