Portsmouth...

... why would you come here?

The only reason we did was so we could catch the car ferry to get us across to Spain otherwise I doubt that we would have and having been here a couple of days I am now confident that we are highly unlikely to come back.

We are staying at Gosport which is a 7 minute ferry across the Solent from Portsmouth and though the seaside nature of it is acceptable when we told Geoff our B&B host that we had walked down the Main Street the day before he replied "you poor things" and that pretty much sums Gosport up.

Today we took the ferry across to Portsmouth and perhaps it was because the weather was overcast and turned to rain or that other than Gunwharf Quay the place was rather bleak Portsmouth didn't really appeal.

Having said that Gunwharf Quay is a very modern shopping complex literally on the shores of the Solent much like the Viaduct at Auckland from a restaurant point of view but with some well known brands having outlet type shops similar to Dressmart at Onehunga but of a far higher class - think Boss, Ralph Lauren et al.

Towering above the Quay is the (Emirates) Spinnaker Tower which gives a panoramic view of the area (it would on a good day🌞) and the nearby Solent is a busy stretch of water as all the car ferries to France & Spain and the ferries to the Isle of Wight leave from here and further up the Solent is the commercial port of Southampton with cargo and cruise ships coming and going.

About a 10 minute walk from the Quay is Portsmouth city centre which didn't offer much.

Portsmouth is very naval oriented there being numerous museums and exhibitions relating to the history of the Royal Navy and HMS Warrior which is undergoing refurbishment is very prominent at its dock

.

Tomorrow we start the major leg of our trip and that is getting the late morning ferry to Bilbao which is a 24 hour trip - we only hope that the voyage across the Bay of Biscay is smooth and otherwise uneventful, but just in case there is a packet of Sealegs in the suitcase.

On yesterday's drive from Brockenhurst I was amazed to see a Bentley dealership basically in the middle of nowhere, slap bang on no more than a country road - the high valued presitige cars looked a fine sight surrounded by the trees of the New Forest.

Geoff up to 9 years ago was a 747 pilot for SingaporeAir based in Singapore - we had an interesting chat at breakfast re his experiences including a near miss (by a mere 300ft) with another SingaporeAir plane while flying over Iran!