Okay, good, not so.
We left Canterbury and headed the 40 miles as the crow flies or 500 miles as the roads go to Southampton the next day, I managed to break apart the bike enough to get it in the boot, so we didn’t have to carry it around on the back and set off through the convoluted path that is the roads in the South East. We arrived in Southampton about 11:00 in a wonderfully warm day. We checked in early and parked up, and then headed out at to the train station. The “New Southampton” is a big shopping park, with internal shops and loads of car parks – its okay, but reminded me of being abroad somewhere, things weer a little unfamiliar. We got to the train station and after faffing with tickets got on the train to Winchester with 30 seconds to spare, and within about 15 minutes we were at Wincester, coming out of the station we had no idea which way to head, so out with the sat nav, and five mins later we were heading for the town center. We found a pub which was yet another “oldest pub” to get a little light lunch and then had a look around. We saw the Cathedral, the had a look at “the oldest working mill, in the world”. Opposite the mill was a pub with a terrace garden next to the little river – we spent the entire rest of the day there.
We thought we might eat in Winchester, but by 7:00 no one was hungry so we just had another beer in a crappy place and got the train back. Then we went over the bridge into “Old Town”. It wasn’t very old.
We decided to treat ourselves to a picnic in Tesco (well be bought it in Tesco, we didn’t think it right to eat in) and back to the hotel. I felt a little dodgy, but managed to eat me sandwich in, then I went to sleep, no idea what Kate managed to eat.
Next morning and off to Starbucks for breakfast for a change, I had a panini as it had free pop-crisps, and then we went to get the ferry over to the Isle of Wight. The woman in the ticket office told me the cheepest ticket was £51 for the three of us, so we hummed and harred for a bit, then I noticed we could have a family tickey – so I said “How about the family ticket” and she said “okay, that will be £31” – stupid people. We caught the fast boat, which leaves about every half hour, and the crossing only took 25 mins or so – really speedy boat and a great crossing./ Before we knew it were were in the Isle of Wight and in Cowes, two days before the Cowes Week Regatta – not that you would have know.
We crossed to East Cowes on the (free – brilliant) chain ferry, and found nothing of interest there what so ever, so came back after a few minutes, and went to catch a bus. First stop Newport, which seemed just as dirty as the real Newport is. Then a bus out to the monkey and owl sanctuary – which was okay, but it was so hot the monkeys couldn’t be bothered to dance for us – even when we shouted at them. Kate stroked an owl, I just took a picture. Another bus – back into Newport, just time for Kate to have some cheesy chips and me to have a beer, then we were on another bus to travel 15 miles and one hour. Not great. Then we arrived at the Needles, which are some rocks which stick out from the west side of the IoW, only the Needles is actually a tiny Blackpool full of horrors. We went on the cable car which really made my day, down to the beach after being queue jumped buying the tickets by millions of foreign people. We got to the beach, saw the Needles in the distance and came back up again watching in mock surprise all the hats that had been blown off cable car riders.
Luckily the bus was coming in 20 minutes so we stood at the front of the queue, perhaps slightly keener than we should have, at one point I thought a bloke was going to stand in front of me, so I prepared my amazing put down I was going to fire at him, but he must have sensed it coming as we shuffled off in a waft of sweat. Bus came another, one and a half hours to get back, and more annoying, selfish morons on the bus and we were finally back at Cowes and could have a beverage. Caught the next available transport out of there and returned to Southampton. We found an Indian, and sat and had a beer and some really quite nice grub. Sian thought it was cold there, I was fine, so we swapped and then they turned off the air con.
Next morning we set off in search of Hungerford – we found it.
Then we came home.