We were invited to visit and stay with my in-laws who live in Bournemouth, Dorset over the Easter weekend so last Thursday we drove down from Bristol to join them on the south coast. We left the planning for the weekend to David and Donna, in fact the only thing we had to do was to provide a suitable dessert for our meal on that first night!

David was home to meet us when we arrived at midday and whisked us straight off for a walk around the Boscombe sea front area to the east of Bournemouth. With it being a school holiday week here in the UK, combined with good weather, the beach was quite busy. We saw a few paragliders making the most of the good conditions and thermals to fly along the coastline.

Having stayed local on Thursday we were driven to London on Good Friday. It’s about a one hour twenty minute trip by car from Bournemouth and our plan was to spend the day in Richmond Park and visit Myrtle Avenue, Hounslow whilst we were in London. The avenue is located at the end of the Heathrow Airport runways. It’s a well known spot for watching some huge planes land or take off, depending on wind direction. Planes landing is the more impressive of the two options as per this video – Myrtle Avenue, Heathrow

David based his plans for the day on which way the planes were approaching Heathrow. We wanted to see them landing but that wasn’t happening as we headed towards the capital so we made straight for Richmond Park. We parked in a pre-paid pub car park in Richmond, that David had found online, and then headed down towards the River Thames for a walk along the riverside path.

We didn’t spend too long following the river before heading inland towards Richmond Park. The park covers quite a big area and a walk around the perimeter is seven miles. David had plotted a four mile route for us, through the park, taking in viewing points and the Isabella Plantation garden. In between we were hoping to spot a few deer and just enjoy the grounds.

We entered the park on the Richmond side and climbed a steep hill to the top of the park and King Henry’s Mound. From there we had a view across the tree tops back towards central London, as per the image at the top of the page. That seemed like a good time for a coffee and cake so we used the coffee snack bar in the park before moving on through the park to the Plantation garden.

We were there at the right time of year for the azalea plant collection that were all in bloom. The vivid colourful flowers make for quite a spectacular walk around the garden paths and water features. We spent a fair bit of our time in the garden before moving off to walk more of the park and hopefully spot a few deer.

As it happened we did see deer, lots of them, after leaving the garden and making our way back towards the top of the park. Red and fallow deer roam free in the park. they’re used to people and didn’t really pay to much attention to us. The park guide asks visitors to keep at least 50m from the deer. The trouble is that no one had told the deer that and we had them wandering close to us rather than us approaching them.

I’d recommend Richmond Park to anyone visiting London for a few days. We’d never been there before but we’ll go back. You could easily spend a day or more there, just enjoying the parkland, there’s lots to see and do. Our visit over we made our way back to the car and headed over to Myrtle Avenue, a thirty minute drive from Richmond.

Unfortunately the planes were still taking off towards Myrtle Avenue, the wind direction hadn’t changed all day. The huge planes thundering low overhead are still quite something to see but not quite as spectacular as the even lower, slower planes coming in to land.

Our visit to Heathrow was quite short as we had to drive back to Bournemouth, we stayed for about thirty minutes but still saw plenty of planes. There’s a few more Heathrow viewing points around the airport perimeter so we’ll be returning at some point when we can spend more time here.

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