Portsmouth

We spent a night in Portsmouth and over an afternoon and a morning we explored the Historic Docklands. These are the home of the Royal Navy as well as being a playground for boat loving tourists. We saw and went on the HMS Victory which is the worlds oldest commissioned warship and the Royal Navy's most famous warship. It was incredible to see the inside of the ship, Ewen had a hard time walking around though because of the low ceilings. It was very cramped in most of the levels and its hard to believe that over 800 men used to live on these boats at the same time. The living conditions between the different ranks of sailors were so different with some getting their own bedrooms with actual beds while the others had to sleep in hammocks up above tables.
We went into the Mary Rose Museum to see sections of the boat that was pulled out of the water in 1982. The hull of the boat is being reconstructed until 2012 but we saw personal, military and domestic objects in the museum. The museum was a lot more interesting than i thought it would be. One of the displays was of a skull they pulled out of the water and sometimes the scientists have worked out what the mans skin colours, hair, colour, etc looked like and they have reconstructed his face so you can see what he looked like.
We spent an hour or so playing the games in the Action Station which according to our lonely planet guide is a "thinly disguised recruitment drive for the modern navy" even so the games were pretty fun. The most impressive game was probably when you got to pilot a simulated helicopter.
The last thing we did in the Historic Dockyards was to go on the HMS Warrior. This was a huge ship that had a lot more open spaces than the Victory. When it was originally built it was bigger, faster and more heavily armed than any other warship afloat. Basically this meant that it looked so scary it kept the peace on the water and never had to fire a shot at anyone. We got to see a firearm display while on the boat and learnt about the different weapons the sailors used. While exploring the boat there was a 70th birthday party going on in one level so we were taunted by the delicious smells of a roast cooking away in the kitchen, it was incredible how far the smell traveled, even right down to the little cells towards the base of the ship. The prisoners in those would have being taunted every day by the smells of food cooking!

Ewen demonstrating the low ceilings on the Victory boat

Me playing with the guns

Ewen flying a helicopter

HMS Warrior

Random dressed up people

Me & Ewen in front of the Victory

Dressed up people in front of the Victory

Playing dressups

Playing dressups