Cross Skating, Bournemouth to Hengistbury Head, England

We were visiting the UK so I decided to take my rollerskis and cross skates. I'd hope to skate at Hyde Park in London but the logistics were too complicated plus it was very, very hot. However we had 3 days in Sunny Bournemouth. I got up at 7am on the second day and took my cross skates down to the promendade on East Cliff Beach. From there I headed east towards Boscombe. This section of the prom. is quite wide with a public road which thankfully doesn't open until around 8am. The road is a bit rough but the wide pavement is nice and smooth. The tarmac they use for surfacing is super hard and the points have real trouble gripping this early even if the air temperature is quite warm.


I'd noticed on Google earth the prom. is quite sand covered. I'd assumed the photos were from the winter but there is indeed a lot of sand blown onto the path and this is not cleared every day. The beaches are piled up almost to the level of the promenade. There are quite a lot of runners at this time of day too as well as cyclists.

I made it all the way down to the end of the prom. about 6km one way. On cross skates it should be possible to go on the track all the way to the end of Hengistbury head but I didn't have time to try this. On the return I avoided the steep zig-zag path and climbed back up from Bournemouth Pier via the East Cliff Slope. 400 meters long at 6.7% average gradient covered in 3m36s.

I wouldn't particularly recommend this part of the prom on rollerskis as there are quite a few rough sections.