Our Short Essex Family Break in August 2017

Short Essex Family Break Woodpecker Yurt, Essex
Last weekend we had a few days off work and holiday club, so headed away for a few days. We had a short Essex family break – getting away from it all.

A short Essex family break isn’t the first thing you’d think of when planning a few days away. Initially we were looking around Europe for something within the £500 range, but soon gave up.

Hands up, who has never been to Essex properly ever? Me. I don’t know why. There are lots of places in this country I have never visited properly, and Essex is one. It’s also one of the closest to where we live, M25 traffic permitting.

To celebrate Shaun’s birthday (as his is two days before H’s), we headed to Mount Hall Woodpecker Yurt as a little getaway for the three of us. After our previous brilliant but noisy Yurt experience, I was hoping for something a little more quieter and we got it.

Short Essex Family Break Woodpecker Yurt, Essex

Mount Hall is just outside Colchester, again another place I had never visited. I mean, without knowing anything, the name Colchester doesn’t sound like somewhere you would actively visit, right? But oh, so wrong. The history!

H’s first topic in Year 4 is the romans, and as we couldn’t make it back to York, Colchester is as good a place for some proper Roman history. Colchester Castle is really interesting and worth visiting too.

Fancy a half hour drive? Then you have Clacton-on-Sea and Walton-on-the-Naze, both have piers you can walk along. The Walton Pier is massive, and a quite decent long walk out to sea whereas Clacton’s Pier is full of amusements. Both are good places to use up your spare 2p’s on the machines in the arcades.

clacton on sea wind farm

Out to sea is a windfarm which covers the skyline. I think we’ve seen it when coming in on flights as you line up with the Thames Estuary – you can’t miss it.

Walton-on-the-Naze has an entire hill full of beach huts all beautifully coloured which you can see from the pier.

Beach huts at walton on the naze

The best part of our short Essex family break was the location. You’re not far from the A12, there are shops nearby for supplies but it’s still quiet. You are under the Stansted flight path which doesn’t make it completely quiet, but it’s still quieter than our previous stay.

Short Essex Family Break Woodpecker Yurt shower block and kitchen

Woodpecker Yurt has its own shower and kitchen block, as well as games for the private garden area. We could also borrow cycles. H enjoyed having a go on an adult bike while I fear she’ll need another bike already as it only felt like yesterday that she got her last one… she grows too quickly.

bike riding Woodpecker Yurt, Essex

Around the Woodpecker yurt are apple and pear trees, with grapes growing on a side wall. We didn’t hear the woodpecker, but could still hear the chickens and horses just over the wall. H’s new found love of animals since she went to Coombe Mill meant she went to feed the horses some grass every day we were there.

Short Essex Family Break H feeding horses at Mount Hall, Essex

Every night we had a BBQ. It’s quick and easy, in fact, the most difficult thing was finding somewhere that had vegetarian food. The local Co-Op had run out so we had to drive to a Tesco in Colchester. The joys of arriving on a Sunday when the shops had closed. On the second night we toasted marshmallows at the fire pit.

Toasting Marshmallows on an open fire

It was a lovely relaxing stay, and I feel like I want to discover more of Essex. I don’t know why we’ve never ventured out there. It’s so pretty!

Mount Hall Apple tree

I found our yurt for our short Essex family break via Canopy and Stars.

Of course, what this now means is we’re going to look into getting camping gear, and get into the camping lark properly while the weather is still good. This may be a bonkers idea, but right now it feels like a REALLY good idea!

We’re linking up to Country Kids this week, it has been a while – it seems only fair as H and Shaun are in the Coombe Mill blog this week!

Country Kids

7 Comments

  1. What a beautiful place to discover and relax, I can’t say I’ve ever spent much time in Essex myself so it’s lovely to see it from a tourist’s perspective. I must say this would be the absolute closest I could imagine going to camping but it looks beautiful. It’s lovely to see that H has gained enough confidence to go and feed these beautiful horses too, she loved the ponies here on the farm.

    Thanks for linking up with us on #CountryKids.

    Reply

  2. We’ve had some short breaks in unexpected places and they’ve always turned out to be great fun. The yurt looks lovely and I know the area you stayed in as it used to be a day visit place from where we lived in Herts. Mich x #CountryKids

    Reply

  3. What a great adventure. It sounds like a wonderful place to stay. I would love to stay in a yurt one day #CountryKids

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  4. You visited where we live. It’s so weird reading about the things we do all the time. We walk past the castle to go into town and really don’t think anything of it. I love the look of where you stayed. It looks like an adventure #CountryKids

    Reply

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