Bournemouth

Some highlights from Bournemouth include visiting the oceanarium and participating in a beach clean up, accidentally watching the Bournemouth Air Festival, and eating really good Lebanese food down the street from my Airbnb. 

I spent a lot of time walking the promenade from Bournemouth to Poole. Apparently it's a common thing to have a beach hut if you live nearby. These range from shacks with camping stoves and enough space to store beach chairs to two story huts with bathrooms and mini kitchens. The less modern ones are painted with fun colors and usually the owner has some personality showing in the decor, whether that be in the choice of curtain in the window or figurine in the porthole. 

Though this seems super great and convenient, the huts in Bournemouth sit at the edge of a clearly eroding cliff. 

When I saw this set up, I realized how important it is that I work on this project. Coastlines are constantly evolving and there are so many parts to the question of what do we protect and when. If you choose to install protective structures on the cliffside, allowing for continued tourism and bringing money to local businesses, you then have to maintain the structures, which can cost a significant amount in the long run. If you let nature run its course, saving money and resources, you risk losing property above and below the cliff. Of course there are many scenarios for this setting, but you can see how challenging it can be for those in power to make decisions. 

On a less serious note, one day whist walking the beach, I happened to catch the first day of the Bournemouth Air Festival. There are several displays throughout the day, but I watched the RAFAT Red Arrows show. 

Below are some videos of the Red Arrows.

Day Trips: Studland/Swanage

As recommended by one of the researchers I talked to, I took a trip to Studland to see Old Harry Rocks. I think there's some old story about why the rock formation is called that, but essentially it's a chalk formation part of the Jurassic Coast.

Bristol

By the time I was in Bristol, I started to get into a rhythm of having some work days and some exploring days. However, most of my days here were work days as I was nearing the end of my stay in England and wanted to plan out the next steps. That being said, I did take a day to see the city discovering places like St. Nicholas Market, where I got the best kebab yet, and Brandon Hill.

Though Bristol isn't on the coast, it does have the River Avon, so I spent some time walking along their riverside path.

In addition to my kebab at the market, I had some really great food here. My favorite bakery was Farro where I tried their spiced buns, babka, and damson galette. I also had a steak and mushroom pie at Pieminster, bibimbap at Tuk Tuck, and dinners sponsored by Tesco. Bristol seemed to have just about any type of food possible and I wish I had more time to try it all.

Day Trips: Weston-super-Mare & Bath

One of the sandy beaches close to Bristol is in Weston-super-Mare. The town itself is pretty large with many shops and restaurants, so I spent a bit of time exploring. I grabbed lunch at a diner and headed out to the beach. 

My biggest shock when I got there was how far out the tide was. The tidal range there is a staggering 14.5 meters (~47.5 ft), making it the second highest in the world. It was a bit intimidating to stand on the promenade and hear the sea in the distance but not see it. During low tide, many mudflats are exposed, which can become dangerous if you are not careful. There are signs everywhere saying don't walk any farther into the sea, but people do it anyway and you can see them up to their knees in mud.

Also, as you can see in the picture on the left, it was super foggy for most of the morning, which only added to the eeriness. It's the only beach I've been on that hasn't been immediately relaxing.

While the beach was still foggy, I walked from Weston-super-Mare to Uphill, a nearby town. I soon became aware of why the town might be called Uphill as I had to walk up a giant hill to get to St. Nicholas Church. The church was consecrated in 1186 and is a part of The Churches Conservation Trust, so is well preserved. I particularly enjoyed the view from the neighbooring tower.

The next day I decided I wanted to see Bath. I hopped on a bus and was there in about an hour. I ran into some Australians I had met in the hostel and we went on a walking tour. 

Though I didn't visit the Roman Baths (because it seemed unreasonable to spend almost $30 to look at a pool of water), I did go to the Bath Abbey next door. I was again impressed with the architecture and enjoyed wandering around staring mostly at the ceiling. I was staying late enough so I attended another evensong service.

Southampton

Well, if there's anything I can say about Southampton it's that the University's campus is really nice. In fact I became well aquainted with it after spending almost every day in the library. The weather wasn't the best during my week there, so I mostly worked and planned for Peru.

One of my meetings for my project took me to the National Oceanography Centre, and that ended up being a highlight of the trip. The only other marine center of that caliber I've been to is Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and that was a tour when I was a junior in high school. Now that I know a bit more, it was really cool to meet with researchers and Ph.D. students to talk about things I'm passionate about. I was given a tour of the facilities and got to see an "aquarium", which was essentially a room where fish and such are kept for research. Visits like that confirm that I do like what I'm setting out to do and that a Ph.D. is in my future.

On a completely different note, some of the only pictures I took in Southampton were of food. Though I had my fair share of English breakfasts over my time in England, my two favorite were from this week.

Day Trips: Cowes & Salisbury

I figured while I was close by, I should probably make a trip to see Stonehenge. What I wasn't prepared for was how complicated and expensive it would be to get there.

I started with a train from Southampton to Salisbury. My plan then was to grab a late breakfast and take one of the local buses to Woodhenge, another circle monument near Stonehenge. From there I would walk to Stonehenge to avoid paying for the entrance fee and the official Stonehenge bus. The weather was quite nice so it should have been an easy day walking around Salisbury. This, however, was not the reality.

After my breakfast, I walked to the bus stop where I thought I could grab the right bus. I have no idea what was happening that day, but none of the buses were running on time and I ended up waiting for over an hour for the bus to come. It never did. In the meantime, two buses I could have taken passed by, but I didn't realize they would also bring me to the same place, or at least close to Woodhenge. I gave up on the local bus around 2 hours into waiting around on the street and found the official Stonehenge bus stop. There should have been a bus within 15 minutes of me arriving, but that bus never came. I then waited another hour for the next official bus, which was the last one of the day, and finally was on my way. 

I knew I wanted to go to the evensong service at the Cathedral at 5:30 pm, so planned out which bus to take back to make with enough time to see Salisbury a bit (because waiting on a random street doesn't really count). This meant I would have around 40 minutes to walk the free path from the visitors center to Stonehenge, take my pictures, and make my way back to the bus. If I wasn't so concerned about time, the walk would have been really nice. It was a bit longer than I anticipated, but the path took through a cow pasture where you could get close enough to pet the cows.

Arriving at Stonehenge itself felt a bit like checking off a bucket list item. It is literally a circle of rocks and looks exactly like all the pictures. Even if you pay the $25 ticket fee, you still aren't all that close. This isn't to deter anyone from going and seeing it themselves, but there are definitely cheaper and more interesting things in England.

After I took my pictures, I walked all the way back to the bus stop with what I thought would be only a few mintues of waiting before heading back. This turned into another 40 minutes as the bus I wanted to take never came. That also meant I would be taking the last bus of the day back to Salisbury and would have to speed walk to the Cathedral to make the service. Eventually the bus arrived, we packed way too many people on, and drove back to the city.

I ended up making it to the evensong service seconds before the procession began. I was a bit distracted on the way in because of how elaborate the Cathedral is, but quickly found a place in the chancel next to the choir. I had been to two evensong services at this point, so knew what was happening, which was nice. After, I spent a few minutes walking around the Cathedral and booked it back to the train station to take the next train to Southampton.

Though the day didn't go as planned, it really could have been a lot worse. I got to see almost everything I wanted to and only had to pay a small amount more than anticipated. I think days like this are necessary to throw me back into the reality of traveling and they make me slow down and remember not everything will be perfect all the time.