Travel Day 18 - Portsmouth

 Today was another of our "Touristy" days where we spend an extra day at one place to take in the local attractions. Portsmouth or "Pompey" as it is know to the locals was a day we had set aside right from the very beginning as Portsmouth has been Great Britain's naval harbour for well over 500 years and there is an amazing Naval Dockyard/Museum open to the public - I have visited before but like many of these things given only a day to look around it but gives you a taste for what you really would like to come and see!

We basically spen all day there and still came away without getting to see the Submarine, the Explosive and the Museum sections!

We bought the "Elite" pass which cost about $100 NZD and it's valid for 12 months so if I  visit every month for the next ten months it would work out to be only $10 per visit. If I did that I'm sure I would learn so much more and still have to come back I am sure. This pass gives you access to all of the major attractions and I would thoroughly reccomend people do visit if this sort of attraction appeals (there's only one of these however countless Cathedrals, but then if Cathedral after Cathedral is your thing then you could save yourself $100.

Firts up we took the Harbour Cruise on the ALi Cat which I'm pretty sure was equipped with twin Hamilton Jets made in Chirstchurch (Alistair maybe able to confirm)? This gave a us a good look arround the harbour and the commentary pointed out the warships in port and filled us in on their background - I got to see the QE II Aircraft Carrier for the second time as back in 2017 it was still being finished and hadn't been commissioned - this time round it was back in port being finished once again from some work that had taken it out of action since March. Just as well there wasn't a war it was needed for as they woud have had to have a chat with the other side about a reschedule date for the start. It cost about $8 billion NZD and then on top of that it is equipped with a fleet of $100 million NZD attack aircraft. Oh, and this was the first of two, the second being the Prince Charles which came into service in 2019.

The Sialing ships we visited were the Warrior (the largest iron hulled battleship in the world at the time ) which was both sail and steam powered with a crew of 706, then there was Nelson's Flag ship the Victory which is undergoing an $80 million NZD conservation project at present however can still be visited and of coourse King Henry VIII's Mary Rose.

A visit to the ship/boat building shed again could take all day and I marvel at the craftsmanshhip still being retained and used to hand build boats using traditional time honoured methods.

We also took trip out onto the Harbour on a WWII landing craft, the only remaining one in operation that also saw service during the Falklands conflict in 1982. As with all these attractions they are personed by keen volunteers who are very happy to share what they know about their particular section of the campus. 

As I said, we spent all day here and could easily spend more time so it's just as well we have an annual pass - I've now just got to make sure I come back within the year!
















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