Summer in southern England has felt as dry as the Serengeti Plains, but my recent trip to Elmley Nature Reserve on the Isle of Sheppey looked set to coincide with the start of the rainy season. I woke up to a great deluge ribboning from the windows of my house and pooling in the road outside – one of those storms that were once alien to the UK, only glimpsed on trips to far-off continents.
It felt rather fitting, given that I was going on safari. Privately-owned Elmley is probably best known for its collection of cabins and cottages that look out over a wilderness that covers a fifth of the entire island, but it also puts on tours in search of owls, buzzards and more in its open-topped Land Rover, which can reach parts of the reserve that other visitors can’t. Given that a safari in the more traditional territory of Africa is firmly out of my price range – and that this one was a little over an hour from my house in London – it seemed like a good compromise.
Isn’t it strange, anyway, that we go abroad to check out animals but tend to ignore the incredible ones we have here? Elmley is home to water voles, hares, grass snakes and great crested newts among others. Although, what stood out on the Isle of Sheppey was the things that hadn’t made it over from the mainland. Badgers for one, hence a healthy profusion of hedgehogs who have improbably become apex predators. Meanwhile, yellow-tailed scorpions bask in the sunshine at the old Sheerness Dockyards, descendants of ones that snuck a ride from more exotic climes when Sheppey was busy with navy and merchant ships.
Forgotten Sheppey and its empty beaches
That was long ago. These days, the Isle has an image problem. Some of its towns are among the poorest in the UK and the district of Sheppey East, where the crime rate is almost 200% above the country average, is due to receive £20 million government cash injection over the next decade.
The pebbly beach of Minster Leas, backed by a cheerful row of beach huts that segue to a coastal path rising to bottle-green hills, should have been packed with holidaymakers on a late-August morning. Instead, it was largely empty, leaving my children and I to collect shells between the groynes in solitude, save for the occasional dog-walker.
© Getty ImagesBut arriving at Elmley, past the looming factories bordering the Swale and across a little bridge dwarfed by the bizarrely hill-like alternative that goes straight to Sheerness (so steep that it looks like an optical illusion), it seemed as though I had wandered into a Great American Novel rather than a forgotten bit of Kent.
The sky had miraculously cleared, revealing a great swathe of bright blue dotted with cotton ball clouds. Porridge-coloured grass whispered secrets towards the horizon. Aside from that, the air was so silent you could hear the small movement of a bird’s wings as it flew overhead. Long dulled by the traffic roar and sirens of suburbia, my senses suddenly seemed hyper-tuned.
Exploring by open-top Land Rover
This was good because my fellow safari goers turned out to be much more knowledgeable than me, especially the 12-year-old boy onboard with his Gran and keen to see an osprey. Armed with binoculars doled out by guides Natasha and Fiona, we all climbed into the vehicle and quickly headed off the official trail in search of one.
© Rebecca DouglasThe Land Rover took us bumping over hillocks made by yellow marsh ants, stopping to watch a hare skittering into the distance or little egrets skimming across the sky. High above us, buzzards wheeled in search of rabbits, seemingly unbothered by the hum of the engine.
“Many of these birds haven’t seen humans before, so they don’t know to be worried,” explained Fiona.
© Rebecca DouglasBright yellow butterflies flitted through the reeds and redshanks, named for a long-lost word for legs, flew in gangs. The occasional bunny tail bobbed quickly into the distance. And though the little owls that had taken up residence in the ruins of the old schoolhouse (where Victorian children of the local brick builders had once taken their lessons) proved elusive, we all saw the osprey. We stood up in the back of the Land Rover to peer through binoculars at its plumed white head and huge wings before it continued on its way to Spain.
It proved impossible to ignore what is just over the water. Not exactly in the middle of nowhere, Elmley sometimes feels more like the end of the world. Witnessing plumes of white smoke rising from great, hulking factories that cling to muddy shores across the way can be disconcerting, though Fiona believes they act as a barrier to the houses and shops that might push animals away.
Staying in Elmley’s lovely cabins
My home for the night, Elmley’s newest cabin The Isle, has a more bucolic view towards grazing cows and languidly-milling wind turbines. At night, I bathed in its outdoor tub as a lightbulb-moon turned the grass to daylight.
I’ve stayed in lots of cabins but – truth be told – I’m a sucker for a good hotel. Elmley is the only place I’ve ever been that felt like both. On a bed plump with crisp white linen, there were two pillows for each guest (one deliciously soft and the other more traditional); the excellent shower came with Verden toiletries (not, as in every other place I’ve stayed since the pandemic, inconveniently bolted to the wall but just deposited on the sink).
© Rebecca DouglasBreakfast – featuring the best bacon sandwich of my life – was delivered by golf cart, alongside farm-fresh milk for tea or coffee. Staying felt like a treat rather than an endurance (hopefully guests in the bell tents with communal facilities feel the same).
On the evening following my safari, full of pizza from the oven in the courtyard and with sunset turning the sky rose petal, then tangerine, and setting little fires into the factory’s window frames across the water, I wandered Elmley’s trails in search of more wildlife. The old schoolhouse glowed now, as I watched an owl tear across the sky beside it at a neat, 45-degree angle. A little further along the path, a group of other guests had stopped to watch a baby hare showing off by the fence, its huge eyes, ears and back legs marking it out from the more stubby bunnies that hopped along the plains.
Back in London the next day, with planes thundering across the sky and garden fences blocking the view, it seemed impossible to believe how near Elmley was to the city. But, as the nature reserve taught me, magic lurks in the most unexpected places. I’ll be listening more closely to the birds chattering in my garden and seeking out the bats that dance in the trees at night.
© Rebecca DouglasHow to book it
Landrover safaris cost around £55pp. A night in The Isle, which sleeps up to two adults and two children under 10, costs from £240 (elmleynaturereserve.co.uk). Breakfast costs from £12.50pp.
Amanda was a guest of Elmley Nature Reserve. All stays and experiences have been independently reviewed by our expert writers, who are usually hosted on a complimentary basis, but this never affects our review process.
