Bournemouth, Salisbury, Stonehenge & Portsmouth

After a comfortable train journey from Waterloo, London to Bournemouth, I crashed at Al’s place, and have ended up spending 8 days there. What’s funny about that is that I planned on only staying a few days, but got far too comfortable in Al’s tiny English Flat. I spent a day visiting Salisbury, including an excursion out to Stonehenge, and Old Sarum which was a castle inhabited by William the Conqueror. Stonehenge was one of those shoe-in tourist attractions, where its fame outweighs its physical appeal when you finally get to see it. That’s not to say that it wasn’t worth the trip.

I made a day trip to Portsmouth to see the HMS Victory, Mary Rose, and a few other infamous British Maritime achievements. “The Spinnaker”, is a modern addition to Portsmouth, though I couldn’t see a huge purpose for it except as an attractive centrepiece for the harbour. Overall, Portsmouth Harbour seemed like a fairly trendy center for Nightlife and shopping, though if you ask Al, that is the only 'decent' part of Portsmouth.

One of my mates from Australia, Rocket, ended up giving me a buzz as he was in England. So he drove down to Bournemouth for a visit, and Al, Rocket and myself went into town, and had what was a fairly big night out. Started at 2pm, and finished sometime after daylight the next morning. Bournemouth has a huge nightlife, and quite a few 24hr licensed bars. Bloody good night! Also went for a few beers in Wimborne, which was a fairly quiet town, and then Poole, which again, seemed nice as a whole down by the Marina, but up close was full of, again quoting Al, Chav's, Pykies, Gypo's and Neanderthols. Nice.