With the recession still biting, the “staycation” has been growing in popularity for the last few years. Dan Bloom took a canoe into the Medway estuary and found it just as alien as any trip abroad.

Everyone thought I was mad. On a chilly summer’s day, I got into a canoe with a man called Dave and paddled out into the Medway Estuary.

I’m hardly a world-class athlete. The estuary doesn’t have the best reputation – shopping trolleys came to mind – and I was struggling to think what I would gain apart from a full appreciation of mud.

Yet despite the weather and aching muscles, I warmed immediately to my little seat on the water and as we drifted away from the shore I felt my worries disappear.

Dave was Dave Wise, a Canterbury-based adventurer who launched Canoe Kent earlier this year to share his love of the county’s waterways with paying customers. He took us on an overnight trip to the estuary’s Darnet Ness. An hour’s easy paddle from the shore, it measures a few hundred metres across and is uninhabited.

You can see Chatham’s riverside and Gillingham’s Priestfield Stadium on one side and Kingsnorth Power Station looms over the other. Yachts and cargo ships slip quietly by – but these details did not take away the feeling of isolation. If anything, they added to it as we sat in our lonely tents.

Being somewhere so close to home yet so different gave me a new appreciation of Kent’s beauty. After a campfire dinner we watched the sunset, as perfect as anything from a tropical beach.

By night, the lights of the power station and the island’s centrepiece – an abandoned fort built in the 1860s – gave the estuary an other-worldly feel, even as club music and sirens were carried on the wind.

The next day we explored, canoeing through a small gap into the fort. It has been flooded to prevent too many people getting in but is still very much intact. A rusty flag pole sits in the centre and Dave used the surreal setting as a chance to teach pinhole photography, an art he offers to his fellow travellers.

Elsewhere the island was covered with rare plants, including samphire grass which could be plucked from the mud beds when the tide drew out hundreds of feet away. Wormwood, known for its hallucinogenic properties and used in absinthe, was growing in heavy clumps.

Pickings were rich for bird-watchers and photographers too, as the estuary is a thriving habitat. A heron flew low over our heads towards Nor Marsh, an RSPB reserve off one side of the island. On the other was Hoo Ness, which boasts not only birds but a second fort and a looming row of shipwrecks.

What couldn’t be denied was the host’s enthusiasm for his work. He obviously cared about the island and discovered new things himself as we explored, refusing just to treat me like a customer.

The trip sounds like a heaven for botanists and bird-watchers, but I am neither of those things. The most impressive aspect was the clear space it was able to give. A couple could just as easily enjoy that, as could anyone looking for a more intense outdoor adventure.

After 24 hours which felt like a full-length holiday, I came back sunburnt, dried-out – and ready to face the world again.

A full day on the Medway estuary costs £145 for one person or £75 each for two. Prices for a half day start at £55 per person. Food, drink, equipment and camping are all provided. Trips run throughout the year but departure times are dependent on tides. Tours run for up to four days on the River Medway and estuary, the Swale, the Stour and the Royal Military Canal from Hythe. More details at www.canoekent.com, call 07864 743157 or email info@canoekent.com