Bristol

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7-9 June 2018

The Caravan and Motorhome Club has a superbly situated site on the edge of Bristol Docks at Baltic Wharf and we spent 3 delightful days there.

We arrived at lunchtime and spent our first afternoon taking the 15 minute ferry ride from outside the site, along the docks to the city centre. A walking tour was obtained from the nearby tourist office and we enjoyed two hours looking at some of Bristol’s historic areas before returning on the last ferry.

When the S.S. Great Britain, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was launched in 1843 she was the largest and most advanced metal ship in the world. After a long career at sea, which ended in 1933, she was abandoned in the Falklands. In 1970 the wreck was refloated and returned to the dry dock in Bristol where she was built. After a long restoration she is now a popular tourist destination and we spent a happy day visiting her.

Close by the site is the Underfall Yard, where from Victorian times, the hydraulic power which used to power Bristol Docks locks and other infrastructure was produced. It has a visitor centre with a café and on our last morning we went there for a coffee before we left. We were just trying to work out how it worked when one of the volunteer guides, Richard Harrison, approached us and spent the next hour describing this remarkable piece of nineteenth century engineering.

On our way out of Bristol we stopped at the Clifton Suspension Bridge spanning the Avon Gorge, another piece of Brunel’s work.

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