Travel Escape the world in this North Kent haven, watch some birds and see how your children cope without WiFi...
Nestled on the Isle of Sheppey , on the coast in North Kent near unfashionable Sittingbourne, where it’s all industrial parks and industrial plants, is this haven of wilderness . Elmley Nature Reserve is a twitcher’s paradise, 3,300 acres of wild marshland which allows its abundant bird population to thrive – wildfowl and waders and birds of prey - as well as hares, rabbits, frogs and all the less cute creatures below the soil and waterline. While getting on and off the island is a nightmare of traffic systems seemingly designed to drive people insane, the intention of staying on the Nature Reserve is to escape from all the concrete stuff.
Seclusion and peace is the aim here, a place to ditch the devices and absorb the green stuff. This is a glamping site on a farm. So this is all bell tents, shared rustic outdoor kitchens, amid the acres of marshland.
Festival vibes for bird lovers and those in need of a reset. Look, my family – my partner and two children – are not big campers. We do not camp.
Canvas makes us weep. We stayed in a woodland bell tent the first night, which had electricity and comfortable beds. Still, it was something of a struggle for us, with a night spent mostly searching for real or imagined creepy crawlies.
We were much more at home for the second night, which spent in one of the new huts on the site. These look small on the outside .