27th February - day out in Portsmouth

[whole diary]

[grahame]

I'm headed for Portsmouth on 27th (Thursday) - 09:10 from Melksham, change at Westbury ... back in the evening.  Silly-cheap tickets bought at the start or last month. Stories will be told, no doubt, and happy to meet up / see friends along the way - not yet planned what to do at destination.  Not sure yet whether to travel to Portsmouth and Southsea or Portsmouth Harbour; Portsmouth Arms would have been a different ticket.

[CyclingSid]

Were you thinking of taking a bike?

[grahame]

Were you thinking of taking a bike?

I wasn't ... until you sewed the thought.  Would need to get a puncture fixed on the electric one.  Think I am too unfit for unpowered these days. Is the ferry running to Hayling Island?

[CyclingSid]

The Hayling Ferry should be back in operation tomorrow, after an extended outage for a new engine and its annual MCA inspection. https://www.facebook.com/haylingferry/ https://www.haylingferry.net/

Possibilities if you are electric, and you can go slow enough for someone on geriatric leg power are:

• Fareham to Gosport ferry down the old railway line, possibly including the Stokes Bay branch
• Gosport ferry/Old Portsmouth along sea front to Eastney and Hayling ferry
• Hayling ferry to Havant along old railway line

I think each leg is about 10 kms. I prefer it if it is an westerly wind, old legs prefer a tail wind. Otherwise I personally would do it the other way round.

Even if you only do one or two legs there is plenty to see in this area. I have never tried tracing the Southsea Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southsea_Railway. Seeing as it closed over 100 years ago in a heavily built-up (and bombed) area there is unlikely to be much evidence.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Were you thinking of taking a bike?

I wasn't ... until you sewed the thought.  Would need to get a puncture fixed on the electric one.  Think I am too unfit for unpowered these days. Is the ferry running to Hayling Island?

My posting here is not specific to any future journey to Portsmouth, but I have been encouraged by those above posts to consider taking my own mountain bike to Melksham, next time I travel there on a train.

A couple of such journeys ago, I managed to convey a surf board from Nailsea & Backwell to Melksham on the trains without any untoward incident (that's a rather long story: grahame knows why! ), so my bike should be a doddle.

[CyclingSid]

Hadn't thought of Melksham in terms of surfing. You live and learn!

Melksham to Portsmouth possibly involves the Cardiff train, normally no bike facilities but tends to be room from Southampton. The problem to Southampton tends to cruises, but there is only one on 27th.

After my previous post I couldn't remember if Graham has a folding e-bike, if so he could get the bus between the Gosport ferry and the Hayling ferry.

[johnneyw]

I did the Millennium Promenade Walk a few years ago and was pleased that I did.  The route is literally set into the pavement so is easy to follow.

https://www.visitportsmouth.co.uk/things-to-do/millennium-promenade-p276841

[Chris from Nailsea]

Hadn't thought of Melksham in terms of surfing. You live and learn!

To be fair, it wasn't actually a surfboard - rather, it was a foldable display table of very similar proportions. It was a bit of an 'in-joke' at the time.

After my previous post I couldn't remember if Graham has a folding e-bike, if so he could get the bus between the Gosport ferry and the Hayling ferry.

Graham did have a folding e-bike, but it was stolen from them while it was being used by his Ukrainian refugee house-guests. 

[grahame]

After my previous post I couldn't remember if Graham has a folding e-bike, if so he could get the bus between the Gosport ferry and the Hayling ferry.

Graham did have a folding e-bike, but it was stolen from them while it was being used by his Ukrainian refugee house-guests. 

The folding one was far too heavy to be practical to lift when folded.  It was replaced by a none-folding one which I think has a puncture - tyre very low when I came back from Subway.  Our guests all had bikes and they didn't take them when they moved on;  been a busy couple of days (five things in my diary today, including three meetings) and I'll be taking a look and sorting out over the next 48 hours.

[grahame]

After my previous post I couldn't remember if Graham has a folding e-bike, if so he could get the bus between the Gosport ferry and the Hayling ferry.

Graham did have a folding e-bike, but it was stolen from them while it was being used by his Ukrainian refugee house-guests. 

The folding one was far too heavy to be practical to lift when folded.  It was replaced by a none-folding one which I think has a puncture - tyre very low when I came back from Subway.  Our guests all had bikes and they didn't take them when they moved on;  been a busy couple of days (five things in my diary today, including three meetings) and I'll be taking a look and sorting out over the next 48 hours.

I have arranged to take a cycle to the cycle shop in the Whitley tomorrow to see about getting the wheel to hold air ... if that works out, I'll take it to Portsmouth on Thursday.

Possibilities if you are electric, ...

• Fareham to Gosport ferry down the old railway line, possibly including the Stokes Bay branch
• Gosport ferry/Old Portsmouth along sea front to Eastney and Hayling ferry
• Hayling ferry to Havant along old railway line

I think each leg is about 10 kms. I prefer it if it is an westerly wind, old legs prefer a tail wind. Otherwise I personally would do it the other way round.

Even if you only do one or two legs there is plenty to see in this area.

*If* on the road ... may arrive into PMH and then of along to the ferry and then up to Havant?  Happy to have company. 

[CyclingSid]

The seafront road between Clarence and South Parade piers is closed for sea defence work. Would probably need to take the route round the north side of Southsea Common.

[grahame]

A wonderful day out - thank you for your guidance and company Sid and I have far too many pictures and memories to do justice in a single post.  Here are some / just a snippet from Hayling Island or close









Travel wise - smooth but still a few observations of things that could do with a tweak and might confuse a newbie

a) Touch screen on the TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) at Melksham - "touch to collect tickets" except the touch screen was not resposnive - broken?  Fortunately I wasn't collecting tickets for yesterday - rather for next week - so I have another chance.  If broken, nice to say so?

b) In both directions, the ticket sale system had me changing at Trowbridge, but in both directions train crew advised without prompting "change at Westbury".  And, yes, there is logic to changing at Westbury in case something goes wrong / where there are platform stafff and warmer waiting rooms.  But with a bicycle, change of platform via 2 x lifts at Westbury v same platform at Trowbridge.

About 16 miles cycled; battery on my electric bike down from 5 bars to 2 when I got home.  Something of a "learner" to me, but probably taking it out more in the summer.   The tracker on my phone keeps tabs of my walking and stair climbing, but not my cycling.  Playing with the app on the train last night, I see a section that says "cycle" and hopefully clicked on that to see it I could turn something on to record milage cycled, but found myself offered logging of my month menstrual cycle ...