Bournemouth

The English at play

We have been a bit remiss in visiting the English coastline, in fact I'm not sure we have been to even one famous English beachside town. We have been to a few in Wales, which has a fantastic coastline. But I think places like Bournemouth and Bristol are probably more famous than Tenby. We finally got on a tiny little train down to Bournemouth. It was only 4 carriages so I was glad not to be travelling Friday night, that could have been messy.

It was quite hot, England was having a summer to speak of for once. I thought I might have even gone for a swim. But I hadn't checked the water temperatures before I left London, the average in July is something like 15 degrees. For comparison I grew up in the tropics where the summer sea temperature was 31 degrees, and it would drop to a chilly 25 in winter. That's when people didn't swim as much. Lets just say I was not prepared for 15 degrees, next time I am definitely taking my wetsuit. Or maybe I'll go to the Canary Islands, where even in December the water is still 20 degrees.

Cool stained glass at Russell-Cotes Museum

The English are definitely different from the Aussies in how they approach the beach. For them it seems more like a carnival, so they have permanent rides set up, a roller coaster and that sort of thing, as well as this long pier with cafes, that you have to pay to walk along. There is also a busy road running right up against the beach, so you can literally park and from the boot of your car throw your stuff onto the sand. I wasn't expecting that. It didn't feel very natural for me, it felt a bit as if maybe the sand was imported. I don't think it was, it's just the sense of unreality I had there meant I wouldn't have been surprised if it was. So we didn't spend a lot of time on the beach, we went for a run along it, which was nice. And had some great sea food.

Apart from the proximity to cars, and the weird roller coasters, the beach was pretty nice. It's certainly massive. It's something like 10km long I think. Most people seem to cluster together around the roller coasters. But if you walked a bit further down you would definitely have a nice patch of beach all to yourself.

We also visited the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum. It's this old house on the cliffs above the beach that the owners donated to the city. It's a really cool building and it's just full of stuff. This is definitely worth a visit, if only to warm up after a dip in the freezing water.