Tacky Or What???

I could not really find a category to fit this, so this seemed the least inappropriate!

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Motorists in SW England are those most likely to know what I mean by "the orange tank".

The ex-Army, lightweight tank painted in incongruous orange, next to the M5 motorway near Bristol, as if about to attack the Cribbs Causeway shopping-centre.

Driving past it the other night I noticed it illuminated with Christmas-tree lights and a large inflatable Father Christmas figure (this early in November) - and at least one great big plastic Armistice Day poppy.

I have not the faintest idea why it is even there in the first place, and it has been there for a few years now; but Oh Dear, one has to wonder at its owner....

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I don't mind the annual Dressing of the Sheep with Christmas hats, on that A37 roundabout by Shepton Mallet, though! That is a lot more restrained, and really rather delightfully whimsical.

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ninalanyon · 61-69, T

I must have driven on the M5 past and to Cribbs Causeway shopping centre a dozen times in the summer (there is a Tesla charging station in the car park by John Lewis). I didn't see the orange tank. Where is it?

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@ninalanyon It's by the NE-bound side not far North of the Avon Bridge; but partially obscured by trees on both sides of it, so you don't have much more than a fairly brief glimpse of it in a small road-side clearing. It stands out by its colour, but this weekend, more so thanks to all the lights and stuff on it.

Because my eyes and mind are on the road and traffic more than scenery I can't quite recall in detail but I think it's on the first hill up the valley-side. It's certainly well before you reach the Almondsbury Interchange approach, where anyway I am normally already taking the two outer lanes for the M5 Northwards.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@ArishMell Thanks, I'll try to remember to keep an eye out for it next time. I tried searching the web for it and couldn't find it. Did find a white fibreglass camel though:

Apparently between junctions 23 and 24 (Bridgwater). I haven't noticed him either!

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@ninalanyon ooh, I've not seen that. I don't usually use that bit of the road though.

The poor wicker man a bit nearer to Taunton used to be in splendid isolation, but he's now camouflaged by a load of buildings.

I doubt the tank is mentioned on the Internet - well, until we did.

It appears on Google Earth though!

I have just tried it!

Pick up the Avonmouth crossing, then reduce the scale bar as much as you can without the image breaking up. I managed to bring it down to 20m while retaining clarity, at least on my PC monitor. I can identify shipping-containers as those, on it.

Follow the M5 NE from the river, under the green-painted railway bridge, then under a road bridge; until you start to see what look like motor-cycle scrambles tracks to the left, screened from the motorway by a band of trees and shrubs. Carefully scroll up further, to presumably the bike-club building (low, with a flat, metal roof) and car-park.

The tank then appears very distinctly in a small break in that band of trees, by the car-park. Its appearance as an isolated reddish-orange rectangle in the hedge is the give-away if you can't obtain such fine resolution.

If you have started to see the lane-division arrows for the junction ahead, you've gone too far.