Friday 26th June – Monday 29th June 2026
Tankfest
The Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset holds an annual festival where they demonstrate all sorts of tanks in the main arena.
There is also plenty of stalls and free activities. Abi was shown how to use a snipers rifle and she was allowed to shot a hand gun. There was also a hand/eye reaction game where black foam bars fell from a ring in a random order. Andy did surprisingly well at this and put Abi & I to shame. He managed to catch 5 out of 8, I caught just 2 and Abi missed them all.
There was also a free climbing wall and numerous tanks that could be climbed on and sat in.
We watched a demonstration on how the army clean the main gun on a tank.
There were numerous displays on throughout the day in the main arena. Our favourite was Titan, the bridge laying tank that has an extremely effective smoke screen mode that they demonstrated on the crowd. The giant tank literally disappeared before our eyes.
We also explored some of the main Tank Museum but one day was not long enough to see everything.
Next year we might come for the entire weekend as it was so good.
Bournemouth (Dorset)
On Sunday we met up with Popsie and Uncle Kevin for a day at Bournemouth.
We walked to the end of the pier and wandered around the gardens and shops, before having a paddle in the sea.
There was a big cheer leading (or similar) competition going on which meant there were groups of girls practising in the park.
Shaftesbury (Dorset)
After a night’s wild camping just outside Bournemouth, we went our separate ways on Monday. Abi & Andy headed east to visit Nana Lynne & Uncle Andy, whilst I returned home via Shaftesbury to see Gold Hill (the location of the 1980’s Hovis tv ad).
Bradford-on-Avon (Wiltshire)
I then stopped for lunch in the beautifully quaint Bradford-on-Avon.
