Not the Ghost of Christmas Past

Day 7
After a quick oatmeal breakfast I said goodbye to the friendly Germans and headed towards Portsmouth’s historic harbour. This is by far the city's best known attraction.The first stop was the HMS Warrior built in 1860. At the time she was built she was the fasted in the world. I'm not hugely into Navel stuff, so I basically just wandered and took photos. There were not many people aboard and I had the ship to myself. This was great, except when I was carefully climbing down some steep stairs and didn’t see the person at the bottom of them.

Me: Ahh! (startled)

Him: I’m not the ghost of Christmas past you know.

Me: (embarrassed) I’m sorry; I always get a bit spooked in places like this with not many people around.

Him: No worries. There is a ghost down here, a young man who died in a furnace accident. But he tends to only come out at night.

After that the man who was not the ghost of Christmas past climbed up the stairs. I tentatively stepped into the dark red-lite engine room. There was an audio overhead of men working and clanking metal. My heart was pounding. I took a quick picture and ran back up the stairs. It seems that I can travel around the world, but I can’t walk 418 feet through the engine of a ship.

The firsts of two main reasons for visiting the dockyards and paying the huge entrance fee is the HMS Victory. This was the ship that Admiral Nelson commanded at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1812. In order to see this you have to go on a guided tour.

The ship was pretty impressive, and was set up to look as if it Admiral Nelson was commanding it. There was a marker where Nelson was shot during the battle, as well as a shrine in the spot where he actually died. I can’t believe that I was complaining about the number of people that hostels pack into each room. There were 800 men on this ship when it was a full capacity. There was so little space that the hammocks were used as railings during the day to save on storage space.

Each man was rationed 1 gallon of beer per day. They must have always been drunk! If there was no beer then they would drink grog, 1 part rum 2 parts water. I guess that it wasn’t just a pirate drink after all!

The Victory was kept in continual use for about 100 years after the Battle of Trafalgar. In the 1920’s the Royal Navy began to see the sentimental value of the ship. This is when it was restored and became a museum. The guide I had for this was really good; he was pretty funny and gave an interesting presentation.

The other main reason for visiting the dockyards is to see the Mary Rose. The Mary Rose was commissioned by King Henry VIII. It was the first ship actually created for battle. About 30 years after it had been on active duty it was overloaded with cannons and sunk as Henry VIII watched from Portsmouth Castle.

Immediate attempts were made to bring it to the surface, but they all failed. It wasn’t until 1982 when it was rediscovered was the ship brought to the shore. Only have of it is left now, and it is in a room being coated with wax which will eventually allow it to be dried out. It’s a hugely important piece of naval history and just amazing to stand in front of it.

There was also a museum with all of the stuff that had been found with the ship. Much of it was really well preserved, but how many plates and forks can you really look at? There was a part where you could pick up some things that were on the boat. As I held the cannon ball it was unreal to think that it was older than my country.

The dockyard had a bunch of other museums to check out. I wandered through them a bit, but to be honest I’m not terribly interested in navel stuff and after about 4 hours of wandering around I was ready to leave.

I went back to the hostel to grab my stuff and made it on a bus about 4 hours earlier than I had expected to.

Arriving in Cardiff was a bit confusing. I had 3 people give me the same incorrect directions. I ended up in the middle of no where. Luckily there was a gas station nearby and the guys working there called me a cab. Ten minutes and £6 later I was finally at the right place.

After a long day I was happy to fall asleep knowing that the ghost of Christmas past was nowhere nearby.