A Day at the Bournemouth Air Festival

I’d planned a trip to Bournemouth to see one of my oldest friends in September. When we arrived, she mentioned that the Bournemouth Air Festival was on that weekend – would I be up for a long walk along the beach to see if we could spot some planes? Of course I would!

Our timing couldn’t have been more perfect – the display started as we made our way from Southbourne Beach towards Boscombe Pier. We spotted the Eurofighter typhoon…

… as well as the BBMF Lancaster, Spitfire and Hurricane. I think that is the Hurricane in the photo above but it was obviously taken from quite a distance.

I know it seems from my photos that it was a dull day but it was really lovely out (for September) and loads of people were on the beach and in the sea.

The great English summer of 2022 was slow to start but it was lovely, long and glorious in the end.

We finally arrived at Boscombe Pier and stopped off for a pizza at The Wood Oven on the beach – highly recommended if you’re ever in the area. We were exceptionally lucky to get a table on such a busy day and got down to the busy work of eating and catching up.

After lunch, we began to make our way back to Southbourne. Our timing was perfect again because as we were leaving, we were very excited to see the Red Arrows.

They put on quite a show and it definitely makes your heart stop from time to time.

I did wish I’d come out with a better camera but I’d been planning for a long overdue catch up with my friend. Then again, the planes are so fast that I’m not sure my DSLR would have been able to cope any better.

The Red Arrows left us with a giant heart just as we were finishing our walk.

---

That evening, we decided that poor Stephen hadn’t been tortured enough and we decided to take a long, dusk walk around Hengistbury Head.It’s not that Stephen has anything against walking but 19,690 steps on a day when he was expecting to relax is a bit much for him. Plus, he got to listen to my friend and I reminisce about being 15 again, which he surprisingly didn’t find as interesting as we did.

The views were quite beautiful and it was lovely and peaceful up there too. We could see all the way to Bournemouth.

I spotted some street art and then we decided that it was probably a good idea to head back before it got dark. We’d had a marvellous day and had yet more adventures planned for the next day.