Day: 7 August 2018

We started a multi day adventure on Sunday 29th July, beginning with a nice trip down to the south coast and three nights at Parley Glade – a C&C Certificated Site near Bournemouth (https://www.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk/campsites/uk/dorset/ferndown/parleyglade) .

T was able to work Monday and Tuesday, so it was a good test that all the tech worked as it should. The site was nice and quiet and had great cell phone coverage! It feels odd sitting in a campervan, but still being part of the rat-race.

We met the site wardens and had a great chat with them about the good old days! The only thing to watch for at Parley Glade is the Bournemouth Airport flight line. Didn’t bother us – we’ve lived near Gatwick for a long time!

On Monday, dropped Charlie at Studland Bay for his volunteering week on Brownsea Island.

Wednesday August 1st and it’s Festival time! Leaving Parley Glade, It’s two quick stops, one at Bournemouth Aviation Museum and another high up on the hills overlooking the Solent at Fort Nelson – and then it’s off to Wickham. 

The Aviation museum is great. It was saved from closure a few years ago when it looked like redeveloping the airport would put an end to it, but a small parcel of land was found over the road and the museum was saved. 

There are a few whole aircraft and a few fuselage sections – probably 20 aircraft in all. What is pretty awesome about Bournemouth is that most of the aircraft can be clambered into, so it’s a hands on experience. It was a great day to visit as it was not at all busy and a couple of hours was blissfully spent clambering in and out of aircraft like the Avro Vulcan and flicking various levers and switches and just generally appreciating what a bugger warbirds must be to fly. (https://www.aviation-museum.co.uk/)

Multi-vanning into a festival is much easier if you meet up a few KM away and arrive together. 

So it was a quick slog over to Fort Nelson for the meetup for Wickham. Fort Nelson is a Victorian fort set in 19 acres of fortifications and secret underground tunnels and on top of a big hill overlooking the Solent (https://royalarmouries.org/venue/fort-nelson/). Parking is £3 and it’s free to get into the fort – yes, free! There is a good selection of modern and ancient artillery pieces including a couple of sections of Saddams supergun.