COLCHESTER — It wasn’t that I had a long way to go but that the tangle of roads in the atlas looked very complicated, so I decided to try and get to Colchester as directly and quickly as possible. Except for the bit where I took a brief detour to the Isle of Sheppey. I passed through Queenborough and on to Sheerness. A rather featureless and desolate-looking piece of England. The most interesting part of the detour was the giant hump of a bridge that you had to cross to and from the Isle. You were warned about hazardous cross-winds when crossing.

I decided that the most direct route used the motorway system and it worked out rather well. No traffic jams; the only slow bit was approaching the toll gates for the Deptford Crossing. I got to Basildon at about 1:00 pm. so, being a little ahead of time, I did some shopping.

Reached Colchester shortly after 3:00 pm. and decided it would be a good idea to find my lodgings for the night. Traffic was very heavy and slow around the city centre but after a few circuits trying to find the streets depicted in my google map I stumbled across one I recognized and went round again because I was in the wrong lane. 

The bed and breakfast is on a busy thoroughfare but I managed to find a park nearby and walked over to check-in. There was a note attached to the door asking me to ring a number. As luck would have it I had forgotten to recharge my phone after it had alerted me to it low battery the night before. I  phoned the number but reached an aswerphone. Not wanting to leave my phone on waiting for a call I decided to walk in to town and buy an in-car charger for the phone—which I did.

Returning to the car I gave the phone a quick charge for twenty minutes or so before making the call again. Furtunately my hosts had just been out on an errand and had not known when I would be arriving.