Ship Ahoy!

I first visited Portsmouth Historic Dockyards when I was 10, maybe 11 years old.  In those days there wasn’t a great deal there; the HMS Warrior 1860, HMS Victory and the Mary Rose being sprayed down with salt water – the parents didn’t bother with anything else and we just followed.  The day out held interest for me only because we’d recently studied the Mary Rose at school. 

Portsmouth itself, however, holds a special place in my heart: it was where the husband and I first met (in real life, that is).  That first day we shopped in town and walked out to Gunwharf Quays late afternoon.  Our first flat was in Portsmouth and we frequently visited Gunwharf and loved the Victorian Christmas festival. 

When I saw that Have A Lovely Time were looking for someone to visit the Dockyards¹ I whipped up my hand and shouted Me! Me! Me!  But I didn’t hear anything back.  I should have known the husband would have gotten in first. 

In 15 years Portsmouth Historic Dockyards have changed a fair bit and it now makes a completely packed day out. 

We started in Action Stations, a museum which  brings the modern Royal Navy directly to you with an exciting mixture of physical challenges, simulators and technological experiments.  There was plenty for kids to try out and help them understand about how little corners of a naval ship works.  The upstairs of Action Stations is more scientific where the downstairs is more hands-on, allowing you to try things like shooting helicopters out of the sky (TB and I totally thrashed the husband!), pilot a helicopter and activities based on a Royal Marines assault course. 

Next we visited the HMS Victory, the ship on which Nelson sailed and died.  I should’ve guessed it wouldn’t be easy when we had to leave the buggy outside (there are no locks so don’t forget to take a buggy clip!).  Getting on to the ship wasn’t a problem, nor was getting up any of the steps, but getting down again, that was a different matter.  Depending on which area of the ship you’re on, the stairs range from steep to might as well be a ladder.  Not exactly practical when you’re carrying a baby; I feel for families who’ve got two or more non-or unsteady walkers.  Despite the inherent difficulties with traversing centuries old ships, they’re an excellent way of learning about the past.  Even TB, with his limited six year old attention span was captivated by the simplest of things. 

A day out in Portsmouth wouldn’t be complete by only visiting the Historic Dockyards.  We wandered over to Gunwharf Quays and went up in the Spinnaker Tower.  Soaring 170 metres above Portsmouth Harbour and the Solent, the Spinnaker Tower is taller than the London Eye, Blackpool Tower and Big Ben.  In 2003, when the tower was being constructed, I worked the 06:00 shift at one of the stores in Gunwharf Quays.  In the mornings, as I rode my bike to work, roads would be closed to accomodate double-length lorries transporting pieces for the Tower.  If it hadn’t been so early in the morning, Portsmouth would have been in chaos, and it didn’t surprise me on our return to the UK in 2004 that the Tower still hadn’t been completed.  The Spinnaker Tower opened in 2005 and its high-speed lift sends you up to the viewing towers at 4 metres per second – just a little scary. 

Of course if you really want scary, you could try walking across the glass floor on View Deck 1.  At 100 metres high it’s certainly a drop to the ground below.  If views across the land are more your thing, you can see for up to 23 miles around 350° of the Tower.  If your day out isn’t quite as sunny as ours was, you could always invoke the Tower’s view guarantee.  If you can’t see the 3 Solent forts on the day of your visit, the Tower will issue each member of your party with a ticket to return for free within three months.² 

There’s always something going on at Gunwharf Quays and until 29 August, unlike the rest of Portsmouth, Gunwharf has a sandy beach complete with traditional Carribean food and drink vendors and a steel band.  There’s more than enough to keep your kids occupied whilst your other half watches them and you go off to sample the events.  TB was lucky enough to go on the water walkers, or hamster balls as he called them – my aim is to be under 10 stone by the end of the summer so I can try them too³.

And if, like us, you can’t be bothered to cook after your packed day out, there’s more than enough places to eat at Gunwharf.  We rocked up to Chiquitos as TB wanted fajitas, but having regularly visited over half the bars and restaurants at the Quays both the husband and I can safely say there are no bad ones. 

^{1: Have A Lovely Time and Tourism South East arranged and funded the day’s events as part of their ‘Beautiful South’ campaign
2: Ts&Cs apply
3: Keep your rude comments to yourselves!
We had the pleasure of Emily ‘BabyRambles’ O’s company; unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to leave the men and kids and go shopping!}

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