UK Tourist & Leisure Attractions

Bovington Tank Museum was undergoing a makeover at the time of our visit and this is the uninspiring temporary entrance.  Never mind, there's some 300 tracked vehicles in there to see!

Entrance to the Dorset Tank Museum cost a reasonable £10 and we headed first to the inter-war section.  To the right is a 1920 Rolls Royce based armoured car, apparently still running!
 

Here's a Mark II tank actually used during WWl and complete with battle scars.  The tank door was open, so we ventured inside...

...and saw just how cramped it was.  The engine was in the middle of the tank so it must have been very hot and noisy during battle!
 

Inside a slightly later Mark V tank.  The conditions looked rather uncomfortable, these two guys were wearing masks and sitting right next to the engine!

At Bovington Tank Museum there's a trenches exhibition, depicting life in battle during WW1. Strangely this part is ignored on the tank museum's website.
 

After looking round the fascinating first world war tanks we went for lunch in the museum's Gauntlet restaurant which was overlooked by some awesome looking machinery!  Better behave, or we may get blasted by those big guns!

Here's Belinda carefully framing up an elevated shot of the Chieftain tank below from the balcony above.  The Chieftain was the main battle tank of the 70s and 80s.  You can just see the Tank Museum restaurant area to the middle right.
 

A dramatic photo of the Chieftain Mk 12 tank.  Wouldn't like to be stuck in its path!

Mike just cannot resist trying out all the knobs and buttons!  Here he found out all about the thickness and types of tank armour through the ages.  The tank museum website and many others are on our UK tourist links page.
 

At Bovington Tank Museum there were, er, a lot of tanks and we took a lot of pictures.

This is a Scandinavian built tracked vehicle that proved its worth during the Falklands war.
 

This was an interesting exhibit, a cut-away tank with an audio-visual film demonstrating a tank in action during conflict.

We came away with many tank photos, this one in desert livery.  They all looked large and menacing this close up.
 

Mike seen in action with video camera, here in the post war years area.  One problem was getting it all in without a wide angle lens.

There's a large section on the historic Tiger Tank at Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset.  Seen here is the restored Tiger 131.
 

This is the famous six wheel drive Sherman DUKW amphibious vehicle used to take troops ashore during the D-Day landings.

Among a number of demonstrations was this section with enthusiasts building model tanks out of plastic kits!  Whatever turns you on!
 

Bovington Tank Museum has a bumpy tank arena with tanks taking part in mock battles (which we managed to miss due to the poor promotion announcements).  We took this armoured vehicle ride in a M548 tracked vehicle.  Ooh er!

Although it's noisy and dusty, the ride was rather disappointing.  All it did was two circuits of the arena, missing the larger mound and water filled trench.  We came away wondering 'is that it?'.  Definitely not worth the £3 it cost!