0
0
Grandad was down to stay with us over Easter so we headed down to the Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth for the day. It’s a while since we were last there.
Rather than drive and park in the city itself, we tried out the Park and Ride. It’s located just off the M275 that heads into Portsmouth. Ample car parking then just £4 for the family to get to any one of the drop-off/pick-up points in the city. We would need to get off bus terminal – located in between Gunwharf Quays and The Dockyard. It was a 5 minute walk to reach the Dockyard Gates.
Tickets pre-booked so we could skip the main queue, but needed to get our annual passes converted and Grandad’s ticket converted into an annual ticket.
Straight out of the ticket office, you get a great view of HMS Warrior – the first ship we’d explore.
As it was school holidays, they had several talks on board today. One about the cannons and firepower the ship had. Although we’d explored previously, we hadn’t realised there were two types of cannons on board. There were also different types of cannonball which would inflict varying degrees of damage to the ship – and crew.
We also hadn’t spotted the swords stored above each cannon. All the sailors lived and slept around their cannons, with everything stored away during the day.
Communication between ships was down to semaphore flags – something Grandad had to learn being in the Merchant Navy.
The other talk was on the surgeons – complete with original surgeons case running through the equipment they had. Not quite as gruesome as on Victory – more modern ship so they did have anesthesia (not a wooden bar to bite down on!) but still had the saws and other equipment.
The boiler room was also open – not something we’d seen open before. 12 boilers but usually only 4 would be working at any one time. All coal powered and it would take several days to load the ship up with coal – the crew carried all the bags on board so very time consuming.
The doors to the Officers cabins were open and set out for mid-1800s. The racks where the sailors stored their personal effects were well below deck.
Back out on deck, the ships could be powered by engines or sail so there were an awful lot of ropes to secure the rigging and sails.
After exploring HMS Warrior, we grabbed a bite to eat (really busy!) in the cafe before joining the queue for the harbour trip.
It was an hour long round trip around the harbour to see the Navy ships in port, with the option to get off at Gunwharf Quays.
We opted to stay on and return to the Historic Dockyards. We hadn’t finished showing Granda the sights.
It was a lovely afternoon to be out on the water. We were sat out the front – the top deck was already full. Alas, HMS Queen Elizabeth – the new aircraft carrier – was in Rosyth. Next visit, we’d make sure she was in port when we next visited.
Another plus about the harbour trip is you get a great view of the Spinnaker Tower as you return to the Dockyard!
After the harbour tour, we grabbed an ice-cream then wandered down to HMS Victory. She had had a new paint job – a much paler yellow than we remembered which after more research, this was the colour she originally was.
You can now wander around the back the HMS Victory – something we hadn’t been able to do on previous visits and it was a very impressive sight. They had also opened up the area “below water” so you could see the rudder and the keel.
Heading back to the Park and Ride we were out of the city in a matter of minutes thanks to the bus lanes. It was the day before Good Friday so traffic was heavy with everyone heading home for the long weekend.
