© Crown copyright 2020 Ordnance Survey FL 2020 SF

The tank regiment memorial outside the museum, a 2 hour drive to get here, now to see if it was worth it

Museums = masks now, bit of a shame on the photos of the boys but it didn’t keep them quiet nor stop a superb day

The original first tank, Little Willie, 1915 and part of the WW1 force. Little Willie was a prototype and the first real tank in use was called Mother but based on this design

Panzer 2 (I’ve deferred to my eldest to name all these), there were lots, over 100 easily. It needs two visits, we were there 4 hours and saw lots but it will need a second visit to take more in

Field gun from WW2. The initial section of this museum is set out into 6 sections, one for early tanks and WW1, 4 sections for WW2 and then some more recent tanks in Korea and Afghanistan. There a second larger section which is divided up into lots of other parts after this. Its a huge museum and took us 4 hours to get around

A T34, each tank was brilliantly presented and as the museum has only opened a week or so ago the number of people in here was reasonably low so photos were easily taken

Now I think this is a Panther tank, the guns from here on got longer and more substantial

A Cromwell, there were loads of tanks, in my element in here and the boys were bouncing

A Sherman, my favourite type of tank, simply because there is a beer of the same name made by the South Hams brewery

A Churchill, my eldest’s favourite tank along with about 4 others!

There were 10 types of this tank. All of them bare resemblance to the original ‘Mother’ tank. They were simply named Mark I to X, each was a slight improvement on the last, the only Mark 1 is setup above a trench behind me and shows the original WW1 setting it was used in

Matilda left and a Comet right

One of the original Sherman tanks. all the tanks here were used at one time or another, either used a training tanks, original tanks as they had shell damage in places which can be seen, or captured tanks during the wars. Some are also donated from other countries.

As you get into the second section the number of tanks build, so much that you are standing infront of 4, 5 or more tanks just in awe of them all

Lots and lots of tanks

This is a British Tortoise, the size of it was vast, easily the biggest tank in the museum and this was in the cafe!!

My eldest loved this bad boy, a Jagdtiger. They both had a good look around the shop. My eldest choosing 3 small tiger models to take home and my youngest a pair of Sherman tank slippers which he wore home in the car!! A brilliant place.

Now about 30 minutes from the Tank Museum is West Bay, there are a few eateries here so we had a wander and found a few, however the cafe on the beach served pizza until 8 so we went for that. This is the harbour and shows the River Brit flowing into the harbour

The beach at West Bay

Red flags flying today, the sea was rough, the wind strong and the waves crashing. We are heading up the cliff ahead

West Bay, the plentiful car park is good value at £2 for the day and allows for good walks and a nice harbour wander.

West Bay beach

Now this cliff is treacherous. I thought last weeks walk at Budleigh Salterton was in danger of the sea. But this is something else, I’m about 2 metres off the coastal path here looking straight down at the beach. There is also a golf course tee and green behind me about 10 metres away, precarious indeed

The path, the golf course left and the edge on the right

Such a great coastline. this is East Cliff

There are some fine golf holes along this section, this par 3 downhill would result in a palpitation or two

Heading down into Burton Freshwater

Landslips at Burton Freshwater beach

Brotherly love

Outdoor pools grabbed the attention of my two, to be honest the stiff southwesterly kept our fleeces on today, so maybe the water wasn’t a good idea, however there is an indoor pool which plenty of the caravan owners were heading to

Inland from Bridport and West Dorset Golf Course, just a superb landscape around this part. Golden Cap is just to the west of here, as is Lyme Regis making this is a great part of Dorset to visit

Heading down into West Bay

The light was starting to make some fine silhouettes of the cliffs as we made our way back

North Hill is inland from the golf course

Lovely views inland and out to sea

West Bay and those cliffs again. That is Golden Cap in the distance, that is the highest point on the South Coast of England, maybe next time we visit the Tank Museum we will head there.

Back at the car, as it says, this is still part of the Jurassic Coast, I’ve been on its far western edge at Budleigh Salterton, now I’ve been to a main part. And its fantastic