Bournemouth & London: Fish, cuneiform and freaking out on the Tube

My final day in Bournemouth was wet. Soggy as anything. In search of somewhere dry to spend the day we headed to the Oceanarium on the seafront, stopping to coo over a group of ducklings on the way.

Can't resist cute fluffy ducklings. Anyhoo, we made it to the Oceanarium only to find that everyone else had had the same idea and the queue was out of the front doors. We'd booked our tickets online that morning but not knowing where the fast lane was, we didn't really want to push.

We toddled off round the corner instead, away from the sideways rain and wind to find somewhere to have a cuppa while the queue or the weather calmed down. Settled down in a nice little cafe/restaurant called West Beach, just round the corner from the Oceanarium. Amazing deluxe hot chocolate and, at least when we went in, friendly staff.

So far, so good. We blithered about in the cafe for a while before deciding to brave the rain again. Neither weather nor queue had really changed, but we stuck it out and eventually made it into the Oceanarium.

It was RAMMED. Mostly folks with kids who didn't understand the concept of not banging on the glass. Ugh. The actual content of the Oceanarium itself was pretty good, especially considering it's not a very big place. It includes such things as otters...

A new exhibit of penguins, which very few people seemed to have discovered...

A pair of Green Sea Turtles, called Friday and Crusoe...

An assortment of small (out of focus) sharks...

A group of African Dwarf Crocodiles that look like weird garden ornaments, they're that little...

Nautilus, which are super cool, if a little bit dim, photowise...

There's also a pair of Loggerhead Turtles, but I've got no even vaguely decent photos of them. And of course the obligatory tanks of tropical fish, without which no aquarium is complete. Oh, and seahorses. Cute seahorses.

Basically, the Oceanarium is pretty good. You get in cheaper if you book in advance online.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in Wetherspoons with a nice pint of cider while it rained some more outside. And then I had a go at Limbo because Claire thought I should have another go at a video game while I was staying with her. Let's just say I'm not so great with gaming. Limbo's pretty cool though.

The next morning was an early start again to catch the train back to Grimsby. I stopped off in London on the way to break up the otherwise 6 hour train journey. I'd intended to visit the Hunterian Museum so headed off from Waterloo Station on foot, across the Thames, along the Strand and then up Kingsway. Found my way there just fine, only to find that it doesn't open on Mondays, so it'll have to wait for another trip.

Instead I found a bench in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the little park that the museum faces, and ate my breakfast. Saw a rat. Had a quick look on Google Maps for something else nearby that I could check out. Settled on the British Museum, just up the road.

A short walk later, during which someone asked me for directions to the British Museum (do I look like a non-tourist?), I went to dump my bag and coat at the cloakroom. Apparently it's £1.50 per item and given how short I was on change, I opted to just leave my bag and carry my coat. If I'd thought about it, I probably could have fit my coat inside the bag. I'll remember that next time.

I'd intended originally just to spend a couple of hours there and then find another place to check out. I ended up spending all day there. Good thing, really - there's so much to see that you need a good few hours to get the most out of it.

Managed to see quite a big chunk of the collections, which makes a change from previous visits. Some really fascinating objects, like this case full of cuneiform tablets.

Cuneiform is one of the earliest forms of writing, used in the ancient Middle East. It's awesome. And then there's this little tablet from Babylon, which is potentially the oldest map of the world (c. 500BC).

It's hard to tell from this photo, so here's a diagram of it from Wikipedia. The little spikes around the outside are islands of some sort and are partly why it's considered a map of the world and not just of the region around Babylon.

There's also a whole room about pre-Roman Italy, which is really interesting and an area I don't know much about. It includes these funky little figures. Look quite modern to me.

Also these beautiful pieces from the ship burial at Sutton Hoo. All intricate enamel, glass, stones and gold.

For any Time Team fans there's this case full of Samian Ware from Roman era Britain.

These little beads from an ancient burial that look like they belong in Mario Kart.

I also made sure to check out the Assyrian galleries. I hadn't realised how much Assyrian art and sculpture they had before. Things like these iconic gate guardians.

And these enormous gates.

There's also some pieces from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Wonders of the Ancient World. Pretty cool. These two statues are thought to be of Mausolos and his wife Artemisia (also his sister, ew).

There's a temporary exhibition on at the moment about Indigenous Australia. I lived out there for a year, so I figured I'd check it out (£10 entry). Not much that I hadn't already seen similar of in Australia, but interesting nonetheless. Intriguing to see how the Museum justifies its continued possession of Indigenous artefacts that their traditional owners feel should be returned. Even better to see that there was a reasonably large coverage of Tasmania, which sometimes seems to get a bit forgotten. Tasmania is awesome. No photos from this exhibition because of a request from the traditional owners that no photos be taken of the objects.

Aside from all of the above interesting things, there's a great display of Chinese jade that I'd not noticed before, some fascinating cases of Mesoamerican objects and a whole gallery of Egyptian artefacts that I completely bypassed because it's always heaving and I've seen it before. Just had to nip back upstairs when I thought I was almost finished because I'd forgotten to find the Lewis Chessmen. Shame I didn't get a picture of the little berserker pieces biting their shields, but here you go.

If you're heading to the British Museum soon, there's some cool exhibitions coming up - Celts I think? Yup - Celts: Art & Identity, opens 24th September. Only thing to note, and it's probably obvious - food inside the Museum is expensive. Either bring your own or pop out and explore the surrounding streets for better value grub.

Finally left the museum just before 4 in an attempt to avoid rush hour on the Tube. Which I sort of half managed - Russell Square Station was empty but the actual train was busy. Have I mentioned how the Tube freaks me out? Yeah... so the train apparently stalling twice in the few seconds after we pulled away from the platform wasn't fun. Totally thought we were going to be stuck in the tunnel. Then the driver comes over the tannoy: "Can you please keep away from the doors, ladies and gentlemen?" Think the guy next to me was a bit worried by my almost silent mantra of "It's only 1 stop. It's only 1 stop. It's only 1 stop." Sorry, dude.

Basically, I had a great weekend. Really wish I'd managed to get into the Hunterian Museum though...

Bournemouth: Portland ho!

I seem to be going on rather a lot of trips at the moment. The latest was to see my friend Claire in Bournemouth for a long weekend.

Great plan, save that the weather forecast for the weekend turned out to be less than brilliant.

Trip started with a super long train journey down from Grimsby to Bournemouth. 6 hours, to be precise. That said, it wasn't too bad - the tube wasn't busy, the trains all ran on time and I only encountered one weirdo (read: addict of some description) a few stops away from Bournemouth. So far, so good.

Of course, as soon as I left the station building, I got a lovely reminder of that weather forecast. Rain. Rain. Rain. Ugh. Managed to find my way to the town centre (with instruction from Claire) and then on to the Pier for Claire's work summer do. Spent the afternoon drinking rum, running out to the zip line when the rain stopped and trying out the indoor climbing walls.

I've only been climbing once and it was amazing fun, so it was great to have another go at it. Apparently it's still fun. 'Nuff said. I'm not sure how much it costs normally at RockReef, but I think it's probably worth checking out. They have high ropes too, which were great fun even if Claire did get a little bit stuck at one point.

Aside from that, not much to say about the first day of the trip. It ended with muffins and tea at Claire's new flat. Yeah...

Day 2 got off to a much better start - the sun was out! Yay! We'd initially considered going to the Isle of Wight but been told that without a car it would be difficult to get around. Then Claire had found a tour of the Jurassic Coast, which would have been cool had it run on a Saturday and not a Sunday. We could have done the tour on our own, but train and bus connections to Lyme Regis and Charmouth aren't brilliant from Bournemouth.

So we settled instead for a day trip to Weymouth. Train tickets proved to be really reasonably priced (£10.10 return using a railcard), the trains run regularly throughout the day and take just short of an hour to make the trip. Great for us.

First stop, tourist info. Only, we couldn't find tourist info... Managed to grab some leaflets with bus times though. At which point we decided it was lunch time. Quick perusal of timetables over sandwiches suggested that while we could feasibly take a bus to Charmouth and/or Lyme Regis from Weymouth, it would take an hour and a half so most of our afternoon would be spent sitting on a bus.

Decided to catch the bus down to Portland in the end. The bus only runs once an hour from Weymouth, so we made a beeline for a cafe to pass the time. Had a delicious chocolate digestive milkshake. Sounds like it should be gross, actually amazing. If you're in Weymouth, head to Tom & Erin's cafe on the seafront and try it yourself. Seriously good.

Anyhoo, sugar high achieved, we hopped on the bus and instead of going all the way to Portland, hopped off on the causeway and went for a walk down Chesil Beach. Really nice views. Look.

There was also a dead (or dying) jellyfish.

We also found some funky pebbles and made silly faces with them.

I'm not sure we really planned on spending so long on the beach, but it was a lovely day so we lounged around for an hour or so, throwing stones at the sea and inspecting the washed up jellyfish that was just along from us.

Stomachs started grumbling ever so slightly, so we strolled down the causeway to Portland proper. Nice walk, that. Mile and a half or so from the end of the beach to the village. Sadly disappointed to find that there was very little in the way of eateries - at least not as far as we could see. Grabbed a drink instead at a pub and then caught the bus back into Weymouth.

By which point Weymouth was much quieter and we managed to get a table in King Edwards fish and chip shop before the big rush of people turned up for tea. Pretty good, actually. Much better than the last time I ate in Weymouth when the fish cake blatantly came out of a packet. This time I had prawns in filo pastry with some rather excellent chips. Not bad value either - about £8 for the meal and £2 for a pot of tea.

And then it was back to Bournemouth on the train with some very drunk men who were hilarious the entire trip back. The day ended with a lovely cup of tea up on the roof of Claire's flat. Bournemouth's really quite pretty from up there. Great day. More on this trip next time.