Day 22: Wool, England

Distance from London to Wool: 130 miles
Time of Travel: Approx. 2 1/2 hours one-way

The next day we set off on a day trip to the Bovington Tank Museum, which is located about a mile outside the town of Wool.

On a side note, I used to think that the British really had this naming convention thing down – after all, they name things like Mt. Rainier, have ships named the Indefatigable and the Battleaxe, whereas we name towns “South Hill” because it’s on a hill… on the south side of the valley.  Or we name our capital ships the John C. Stennis – not to take away from what he’s done, but it doesn’t exactly strike fear in the hearts of our enemies either.  Now I see the flip side – the reason that the British named everything so exquisitely now is because they used up all of their more common names back at home. 

Anyways, we took the Tube to Waterloo station and then took the train out to Wool.  Now why Bovington?  Well, it’s the UK’s premiere tank museum, on a par with the Patton Museum in the United States or Kubinka in Russia, and since I’ve seen those other two museums why not see the British one for comparison’s sake?

Dad with an Olympic-branded coke at Wool station.

After we arrived, we took a taxi to the museum.  He lamented the effect of the Olympics on his business (fewer people traveled due to fears of Olypmic congestion) as well as the new style taxi cabs omnipresent in London (the old ones were cheaper and could be repaired much more easily and for less money than the new ones).  Interesting.  Alternatives to the taxi are a local bus that runs infrequently or walking – the taxi was by far the easiest and most convenient option.  A few minutes later, we arrived at Camp Bovington, which is the training camp for soldiers in the Royal Armoured Corps and has been the British tank training center since 1917.