A day at the Portsmouth Heritage Docks

Tom & Jeanette picked us up at 9.30am on a very sunny and mid-20C's day. They are a little older than us, we met in Bali over 30 years back and have only ever caught up once since then. Pat and Jeanette have regularly been in touch over the years and Jeanette was insistent in catching up this trip. We all get on very well and they are going out of their way to host us, coming down for two nights and generously driving us around.

Despite some navigational difficulties we reached our destination and were inside the Portsmouth Heritage Docks by 11am. The area is huge with numerous attractions and would easily fill three days to comprehensively cover.

We focussed on three classic vessels as well as a coffee and later lunch break.  The HMS Warrior was the world's first iron hulled battleship and was the pride of Queen Victoria's fleet when launched in 1860. She was the largest and most powerful warship in the world when launched and is fully restored and accessible.

The HMS Victory, best known as Lord Nelson's flagship in the Battle of Trafalgar - and on which he died on deck, Victory is also fully restored and totally accesible. She carried 104 cannons, was launched in 1765 and is the only surviving warship to have served in the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars.

The Mary Rose, which Henry VIII spent his own money to build as his top of the range flagship and which five and and a half years later, in 1545, broke his heart as he watched her sink outside Portsmouth Harbour.  Dramatically raised from her burial ground after 437 years, s large part of the hull is on display in a wonderful exhibit with thousands of records and relics from cannons, to guns, bows and arrows, medical equipment,  utensils etc including many skulls - even the skeleton of Hatch the dog which lived on the Mary Rose (named after the hatch by the capenter's cabin where he was found).

The Mary Rose is in a great humidity and temperature controlled exhibit similar to the Vasa in Stockholm.

We left the waterfront area and headed to an adjacent pub for dinner. Big local and holiday crowd with lots of noise and music. Home at 9.45pm.