Sat: A good journey, apart from the M25, let’s face it – that’s never going to be good! Arrived to a rather full site, only around 7 pitches free out of 157! We settled for a grass pitch which was in a fairly open space, as some of the others were rather tree encroached. Got setup with the nose well down to level. Pleased to report that mobile signals were good and TV surprisingly as well, so no problems with internet & media.
Sun: Stayed onsite all day and relaxed. Got to know our neighbours with a few good chats and an electrical problem in their ‘van. Site has emptied quite a bit, nearly got the field to ourselves!
Mon: Rain stopped play in the morning, but we headed to Portsmouth in the afternoon once the sunshine was back. The D-Day Museum was on the cards, along with the pier and castle. There’s a lot of construction work ongoing along the promenade, so not quite the walk I was expecting. We still managed to see the pier and enjoyed some chips there, whilst going to the D-Day Museum on the way back. This was a good experience, taking in the LCT 7074 (Landing Craft Tank), along with with many museum excerpts and interactive screens.
Tue: The Watercress Line Railway was our aim for today. This heritage line runs from Alresford to Alton. We arrived at Alresford which was the best station in our opinion and caught the 10.30am train to Alton. The vista from the journey was okay, but not as good as our last journey on the K&ESR. There are museums, train sheds and shops along the line, so a good trip all in all. We returned back to the site via the usual rural roads in this area!
Wed: Back to Portsmouth today, to visit the ‘Historic Dockland’. This is quite a large area housing many museums and exhibitions, which as it turns out, takes quite some time to get through. Originally we were just planning to the visit the Mary Rose, but we decided on a full ticket so we could access what we wanted. We started with the harbour cruise, this was excellent. We were fortunate in that two aircraft carriers were docked at the time, the ‘HMS Queen Elizabeth’ & ‘HMS Prince of Wales’. These I have to say were a magnificent sight. Following this and returning to dry land, we headed for the ‘Mary Rose’ museum. This takes a good hour or two to walk through, very well laid out and lots to see and do. From here we went to the ‘HMS Warrior’. We didn’t spend too much time on this as we were worn out a little. The ‘HMS Victory’ was undergoing some extensive work so we didn’t get to go on this either. Your tickets are valid for a year, so it would be worthwhile spreading this out over a few days in reality. But alas, we only had today.
Thu: Nothing today, just relax!
Fri: Acquired a new gas bottle as we’d ran out from yesterday’s BBQ. Along with all other price increases, it was now £39! Last bottle I bought was £25. We took the awning down, as it was nice and dry, as we needed an early start in the morning.
Sat: Early start, 7.30am departure, all went to plan. We had a good journey back, making use of Newport Pagnell Services. This has allocated caravan bays, around 8 of them, so was a good pit-stop for refuelling the car and ourselves! Pleased to report that the M25 was a clear run, as was the rest of the journey back home.
- Date: 25th June 2022
- Nights: 7
- Pitch #: 78
- GPS: 50.906103, -1.163411
Approach: M27 > A32 > B2177 > Hundred Acres Road