It was a fairly last minute decision to head away the weekend, but Uns and I figured a weekend by the coast would be good before the summer's completely gone. She had her assignment due for Saturday afternoon but managed to mission and get it done by Friday night, so we were up early on Saturday morning and off to Liverpool Street to catch the train out to Southend-on-Sea, about an hour away, so quite easy to get to. We had originally thought of heading down to Hove to Haig's place since he'd be away in Korea for work, but when his plans changed to come back earlier we looked online for places to go and Southend-on-Sea was one of them, which has the longest pier in the world so decided to check it out.

We got in there around 11am, headed down the high street and found our hotel almost on the beach front - The Park Inn by Radisson. We managed to get an early check-in which was great, so headed upstairs and dropped our bags in the room. Uns decided to check out the gym in the hotel and I went in search of a pub showing the Australia vs SA game. After missioning all over Southend, I found the Borough Hotel Bar who said they'd put on Sky Sports for me, so at least I managed to catch the end of the game. I was however the only one watching it, but still felt good when we smashed the Aussies by 38 points to their 12.

After the game, I met Uns after her gym session and we decided to head out to Leigh-on-Sea for lunch, which is only a few train stops away from Southend. I had read up a few things to do in Southend and a few reviews had mentioned Leigh so decided to check it out. We headed up to the Grove Cafe, a small family run restaurant up on the hill overlooking the estuary. Unfortunately it was too windy so they hadn't opened up the garden, so we had to sit inside instead. After a bite to eat there, we made our way down to the Leigh-on-Sea waterfront and took a walk along the road, passing a series of lovely little pubs, cafes, shops and boat houses. We stopped in near to The Peterboat pub for an ice-cream, then landed up walking all the way back to Southend, a good 3 and a half mile walk. It was a bit windy, but nice in the sun, so made the walk back quite pleasant.

Once back in Southend, we decided to head out to the end of the pier, which has a narrow gauge railway train that takes passengers out to the end. The pier is a major landmark of Southend and extends 1.34 miles into the Thames Estuary. It only takes a few minutes on the train to reach the end of the pier, but we were a bit disappointment to not find much at the end. I wasn't expecting roller coasters or a theme park like Brighton pier, but did think I'd find a little bit more than a small cafe, a wedding function room and a lifeboat station. Still, it was rather impressive been over 1 mile out from land on a wooden pier. After a stop in at the cafe, we caught the train back to land and headed up to the hotel.

After a quick change in the hotel, we headed out for dinner. We figured we'd walk up the high street and find something there and en route we decided on The Pipe of Port Wine Bar. As described online, it's a subterranean wine bar and bistro with old-world character, candlelit tables, sawdust-covered floor and its own unique charm and atmosphere. The food (as well as the wine) down there was fantastic, and certainly glad we decided to stop in there and try it out.

Yesterday we, or rather I, had planned to get up early for a sunrise photo but between the wine bar and the tide been right out, that didn't happen. I'm sure it may have been a decent sunrise, but will save it for another time. For breakfast we headed along Palmeira Parade on the waterfront and sat down in at the Barge Cafe - a small and simple family run cafe which did a decent breakfast. From there we stopped in at Rossi's for coffee which seem to be all over Southend, and have apparently been the local award winning artisan ice-cream parlour for over 50 years. The rain decided to pour down while we were in there, so landed up sitting int here for some time until it had cleared up outside.

Once it subsided a bit we made our way back to the high street and took a bit of a walk around the Royals Shopping Centre, waiting for the drizzle to clear up a bit outside. We weren't in there all that long before looking up some local Irish pubs who'd be showing the Cork vs. Clare All-Ireland Senior Hurling Final. We headed up to the O'Neils to see if they were showing the game, and there happened to be a massive turn out of people already there watching the match. The game ended in a draw with 3-16 to Cork and 0-25 to Clare (which means 25 points each). I reckon that's the first hurling match I've seen on TV, and still need to organise to watch one of them live over in Ireland!

After the game we headed down to the beach front in search of fish 'n chips and decided on Clarkes which seemed the better of the lot. Then after a bite to eat it was over to the amusement centre for a few games of air hockey and racing, before grabbing our bags from the hotel and making our way up to the train station to head home.

Was a good weekend, and somewhere different as well, not specifically top of my UK destinations list, but a good few days away. We got a bit of a shock this morning with the weather, which was turned miserable and cold, so certainly got our late-summer getaway in just in time! Depressing thought that winter is slowly on her way here... :(