Pompey Naval Dockyard and Hull

Historic Naval Dockyard and Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth.

On Friday 30/12/11, I caught up with a friend from back home, and we went to the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth.  For those who are unaware, Spinnaker Tower is a lookout tower on Portsmouth Harbour, it has 3 levels that you can view from, the lowest of which is 100m above sea level has a glass platform that you can walk over. The last time I did that, I all but shat my pants as I ran across the platform, due to my massive fear of heights, but since the last time I did that, I have done the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb.  Twice.  This time I was determined to stand on the glass, in the middle of the glass, not holding on to the rail, and look down while counting to 10.  I managed that, still felt like I shat my pants, however, it was a whole load of fun.

After we went up the Spinnaker Tower, we went to the Historical Naval Dockyard in Portsmouth.  The dockyard has, amongst other things, the H.M.S. Victory, the Flagship of Lord Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar.  The H.M.S. Warrior, the first steam powered, completely Ironclad warship, which was Queen Victoria’s equivalent of the modern-day nuclear deterrent, the Mary Rose (well the side of it that still exists), and a few naval museums, as well as the foremast topsail from the H.M.S. Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, the one remaining sail from the battle. 

I had a great day doing all of these, even though I’ve been there a fair few times before, and with a fair few more times to come.

Kingston-Upon-Hull

On Monday 02/01/12 I caught the train from Portchester station up to Hull.  I got up at 05:00, and got to the station at 06:15 for the 06:23 train.  (cue yawn here).  I went to Waterloo station, Kings Cross station, Doncaster, then Hull.  I arrived around midday, checked in at my Hotel and went to the stadium, where I picked up my ticket and spent a bit on merchandise.

Hull were hosting Derby County, and even though Hull are a better team, and played better, they lost 0-1, Derby were better when it came to shooting at goal, all the Hull players kept taking 1 touch too many.  Needless to say I was gutted, so I went back to the hotel and ended up watching NCIS re-runs on channel 5 before I went to bed.

Next morning, I wandered around the city, went into the maritime museum, which mostly focussed on Whaling and Fishing, which wasn’t too bad, just a tad repetitive, there was also an exhibit on the Polish in WWII, which was interesting.  After that I wandered around some more, and came across the spot where the City Council told Charles I to “Bug Off” as the local information office put it.  I still had 4 hours to kill, so I found the local cinema and watched “Sherlock Holmes, a Game of Shadows” which was great fun.

Due to rather rough weather north of Newcastle, there were delays on the trains, so I arrived at Kings Cross 30 mins late, and I just got on the train from Waterloo, that headed down south.  I had a great couple of days in Hull, the people were great, and the atmosphere in the stadium was great, even though we ended up playing like arse and losing, but hey, shit happens.

Off to Europe tomorrow.  Also the Humber River is much wider than I was expecting.