This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.
We noticed this easy to read and simple to digest sign when we were walking by, really useful for car drivers on their way past….
They were less enthusiastic on the other side of the road.
Category: GeoGuessr
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GeoGuessr – Balti House
This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.
We were now safely in St. Osyth, but since our walk had taken longer than we had expected, we were now running late and we thought we’d better get food where we could as some of the locations stopped serving at 14:00. The Indian restaurant claimed it served until 14:30, so given that it was near enough to 14:00 we decided to try there.
The welcome was friendly, with the waiter checking with the kitchen that they could still serve us. What appeared to be the manager came out and seemed happy for us to be there and although we said we’d be quick, he never rushed the service. So, we were relieved to be there, have food and get out of the rain.
The menu.
I love poppadoms!
And the dips of course.
The food arrived and the portion size of my chicken curry and Nathan’s mutton curry was generous, with a rice to share between us. The dishes were of an above average quality, plenty of tender chicken and the sauce had a depth of taste to it. The chicken curry was perhaps very slightly oily, but I was happy with the taste, temperature and presentation, all perfectly acceptable.
Given the length of our adventure to get to this point, this was a really lovely meal in a quiet and peaceful restaurant. The owners have operated this restaurant for over twenty years, so they’re clearly doing something right.
Although, having said that, one reviewer on TripAdvisor was livid:
“Should have been a quiet, simple dinner with family & nearly ended up in a fight with a local over parking WHEN THEY HIT OUR CAR!!!
The Bad…
Terrible Location
NO PARKING!
Dirty & tatty on the outside, (the same inside).
Expensive
Stingy portions
Limited selection
Think the rice came in a packet, it was over cooked!
Waiters mocking customers, (not in English)The Good…
Nothing. Thankfully we didn’t order much to start with and made our excuses & left ASAP.”
I love it when people go out looking for a good time and a positive experience, always looking for the best in a place. I’m not quite sure how the restaurant is responsible for the reviewer being involved in a car accident, and surely the portions would be limited if the reviewer “didn’t order much”. But each to their own.
So, anyway, the restaurant was visited, now it was just the pub before we headed off to our GeoGuessr location.
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GeoGuessr – Great Bentley to St. Osyth
This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.
Even though it was a little bit moist, we thought we should walk from Great Bentley to St. Osyth. The first section of the walk was perfectly acceptable, with a pavement stretching for some distance. We then had some road walking, before realising that there was a path running parallel to the road which we excitedly took.
We were really impressed at our progress, with our estimated time of arrival (via Google Maps) changing from 13:48 to 13:29 because of the excellent pace that we were keeping. Richard would have been furious, but we were determined to get food at a reasonable time. I was surprised just how fast that Nathan could walk, it was pretty much at 4mph. LDWA walks are certainly something he will be taking part in….
Things then went slightly askew, and although we remained brave, it was hard to see how we were ever going to get to St. Osyth. Irritatingly, we were fooled by a private no entry sign, which we discovered later in the day was completely misleading, it was actually the public footpath that we wanted.
Anyway, we set off on what we thought was the only path open to us, but we asked a man walking his dogs for assistance, and he tells us that it was easy to walk to St. Osyth, but the path is now a building site. However, he was positive and he told us that we could still get access that way. It transpired that the route he showed us took just a little longer than ideal, but we happily march on and I also saw a deer which was rather lovely (and the snake sign).
Anyway, the path was never bloody ending, and it seemed to loop us around St. Osyth. Fearing that we were going to miss lunch, we sped up a little, in the hope that a bit of energetic speed would help us forwards. Although we seemed to be heading towards the town’s creek at some pace. The surroundings were though beautiful, lots of, well, moist field.
There was good news eventually, we ended up hitting the town’s former harbour (not literally). I have more historical information on this, mainly gleaned from the episode of Time Team which was filmed here, but that’s for another post. I will say that it was nice to get to the town, even though it was further to the south of it than we expected.
What a lovely little house 🙂
And that’s the end of this post, after one hour and ten minutes of walking, we reached the town centre. The next part of our mission was complete…
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GeoGuessr – Great Bentley to St. Osyth (Adder Sign)
This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.
Well, we completed our walk to St. Osaph safely, it was around an 80 minute walk. There was a little bit of adventure to be had, more on which later. But what we weren’t impressed to see en route was the above…. I’m pleased to report though that we didn’t see one.
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GeoGuessr – Great Bentley Railway Station
This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.
We’re here in Great Bentley, just a four mile walk now to our Geoguessr location. But, why does Great Bentley have such a tall railway bridge? It must be, as Nathan pointed out, the highest point in Essex…..
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GeoGuessr – Slight Miscalculation……
This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.
We had a little issue walking from JD Wetherspoons back to the railway station at Colchester Town. To avoid a long-winded story, the problem is that we (well, I especially) forgot how little time we had to get back. My short-cut didn’t have entirely the result that I wanted, so Nathan suggested that we had to run to get the train. I was dead thrilled at this and did a little jog thing. I think Nathan thought that I was as good as running at Clive, who he thinks is very slow indeed.
We got to the train just as it pulling up into the railway station, so lots of relief. We then realised that it didn’t leave for five more minutes as the driver has to change end. We needn’t have rushed….. But, nonetheless, physically exhausted, the journey continued to Great Bentley….
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GeoGuessr – Colchester Wetherspoons (Playhouse)
This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.
We had a little bit of spare time in Colchester and we realised that our train from there to Walton on the Naze went through Colchester Town railway station. I partly wanted to see if I could find Leon’s hat that went a bit missing a few years ago. But, then, we discovered that there was a JD Wetherspoons in Colchester that neither Nathan nor I had been to, so we thought that’d we’d go there and not worry about Leon’s hat. I was almost reminded of the huge branch that Dylan wanted to carry through the town.
The Wetherspoon real ale festival was taking place, I went for half a pint of the Daleside IPA and Nathan went for the very lovely Mauldon’s Cherry Porter (one of my favourites, but I’m trying to go through the entire Wetherspoons beer options). Perfectly drinkable, all very good.
We knew that we didn’t have long before the walk back to our train, so the slow service at the bar wasn’t ideal. There were a pair of customers in front of us who were keen to order their ‘breakfasses’ and two pints of beer, with the man thinking that they were hilarious for messing about with their order. The woman tried to engage with Nathan, telling him that she was 25 and had three kids, whilst I tried to studiously ignore her.
Nice interior of the pub, which was the Playhouse theatre (hence the pub name) which opened in 1929. It wasn’t long before it was turned into a cinema, before becoming a bingo hall in the early 1980s. It became empty again before becoming a Wetherspoon pub, and it’s a sensitive and intriguing conversion.
Every JD Wetherspoon has its own carpet design and this is one of the most imaginative that I’ve seen. The pub itself certainly had some challenging customers, not least the woman who was shouting angrily at a staff member as she didn’t like that her breakfast was cold. She made quite clear that the chef should be told about her anger. She seemed a nightmare, but fortunately not my problem to deal with.
So, that’s another JD Wetherspoon outlet crossed off my list and it saved us spending over half an hour standing aimlessly in Colchester’s mainline railway station.
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GeoGuessr – Diss Railway Station
This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.
We’ve arrived safely into Diss, and haven’t had to endure a conductor humorously announcing that “Dis is Diss” which was only partly amusing the first time I heard it….
So, we went to sit in the waiting room. Since we were waiting for the train, so we thought that this was a good plan. The waiting room at Diss also has the female toilets in it (in a separate room, not actually in the centre of the waiting room).
Then some bloody interfering old woman thinks she needs to inform us that this is a waiting room with the female toilets. Which I confirm. She then seems to suggest that the entire waiting room is therefore only accessible to women. Much as this segregation was all the rage in the nineteenth century, I’m pleased to confirm that Greater Anglia haven’t installed separate facilities for men and women.
I tried to glare at her angrily, but Nathan was angrier as she had already barged him out of the way getting into the female waiting room. She left looking like she wanted to find something else to be grumpy about. I’m sure that she was successful.
Anyway, onto Ipswich now….
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GeoGuessr – It’s All Happening Now
This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.
This is still definitely a marvellous plan, which is going to a random place as determined by GeoGuessr. This was a plan devised in the pub, more of which here.
Well, the day has started perfectly and we’ve successfully boarded the bus in Norwich, to get to the metropolis of Diss as there is a bus replacement service in operation. Being very raucous, we sat at the back (there was no Mark Donovan to remove us, so we were safe), before realising that meant we’d be last off at the other end. This meant that we were cutting back on our time in Diss, but we decided we’d get over that trauma.
So, onwards to Diss!
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Books about St.Osyth
This is part of the GEOGUESSR 1 series of posts.
For anyone who is absolutely inspired by our trip to St. Osyth (or, more likely, has stumbled across these pages via Google), here are some books which tell more of the story of the town’s history.
The History of St. Osyth – Pubs and Publicans
The Spirits of the Cage – A True Account of Living in a Haunted Medieval Prison
The Interwar Years – The Story of St. Osyth in the 1920s and 1930s
