Our day trip to Portsmouth

Well, I survived the trip.  We had the same number of Brownies, Guides and leaders at the end (39 and 6) that we had at the beginning so that was good!  We met at the train station at about 8am, managed to take over the quiet carriage by accident, survived two changes at Southampton Central and at Fratton and finally stumbled off the train at Portsmouth Harbour about two hours after the first call of "When do we have lunch?"!

We split into two groups to wander around the Historic Dockyard and all the ships.  Our first stop was HMS Warrior, the first iron hulled, armoured ship in the British Navy.

We wandered around the decks and up and down some very steep ladders. We saw all the cannon and hammocks and guns and engines and stuff and also managed to miss the one big downpour of the day due to being below decks at the time.

After HMS Warrior, we stepped back in time 100 years and went to see HMS Victory.  Personally, I think HMS Victory is set up better to wander around yourself.  There's a lot more information boards and the route through the ship is a lot more interesting.  A word of warning though...if you're more than about 5' 5", you are going to have problems because the ceilings and beams are so low! We nearly didn't escape from the ship because the girls found the shop at the end.  However, by this time, it was 12.50pm so it was very easy to distract the girls from shopping by telling them that it was lunchtime.

The other group met up with us at lunchtime (when I managed to get a much-needed cup of coffee from the cafe) and we all took a few minutes to sit and eat lunch together.

The next stop was Action Stations.  None of us were quite sure what Action Stations was but it turned out to be great fun!  Upstairs was a hands-on science type area with things like "see how a submarine's propeller works" and "build a giant FM radio".  Downstairs was a helicopter simulator, a couple of climbing walls and various other bits that they all enjoyed.  I highly recommend it as a way of breaking up a day that might otherwise be very heavy on the museum-type stuff.  It is fairly "look how cool being in today's Navy is!!!", which might be an issue if you're a strong pacifist.  All of our group seemed to enjoy it though.

(It's now quite a few weeks later and I'm failing to remember what we did next)

......

Ah yes, we went to the shop in the Mary Rose museum ("Is that all your money?", "Are you sure you want to spend all that much?  There is another shop at the Spinnaker Tower as well you know!?" etc, etc, etc) and then did the harbour cruise.  HMS Ark Royal was in dock and I was surprised by how small she is.  I think I'd imagined her to be similar in size to the current MV Oriana, one of  P&O Cruises ships that is often based in Southampton.

We got off the harbour cruise boat at Gunwharf Quay (after the girls had attempted to spend yet more money on sweets and Pringles at the bar on the boat, most of the adults managed to get a coffee at the same time) and made our way to the tower.  We appeared to scare a group of men who were visiting at the same time but they were lucky and didn't have to go up in the same lift as us.  As soon as we got to the first level, the girls all took their shoes off to go and stand on the glass part of the floor.  Most of us adults were standing around the edges until the girls started thinking that we were all too chicken to walk across the glass.  They were wrong.

We even managed to get all of us on the glass for a group photo which I strongly suspect will end up in the county newsletter or something.

One brief visit to the shop and a brisk walk back to the station and we were finally on our way home.  Yet again, the first carriage we picked was the Quiet Carriage, so we moved on through another couple of carriages to find some space.  Somehow we made it all back in one piece, without needing a first aid kit, with very few tears and with none of the girls losing anything (I haven't seen my sunglasses since the journey home but that's now up to SW Trains Lost Property office).

All in all, a good day although very tiring!

Points gained
Look up High - Top of the tower - Visit a well-known tower, 10 points
Wet and Wild - Sail Away - a river cruise, 10 points
Moving - Making tracks - take a trip on a train, 10 points


Other points which we'll only count if absolutely necessary...
Share the adventure - your own adventure, 20 points