Walk 53

Southampton to Southsea 25miles

A short 2 mile walk took me to the Hythe ferry(1st of 3 today!) across Southampton water (see pic), the pier at Hythe has its own railway from the ticket booth to where the ferry leaves and apparently this was built in 1878 and is the oldest pier train still running in the world. A nice ferry ride across the bay was then followed by a not so nice walk thru Southampton (too much traffic), once out of the city I walked along the bay to Hamble which was very nice. The second ferry of the day was from Hamble to Warsash, this is where I nearly ended up on e "wrong" boat......I was ambling towards the ferry jetty when I saw a boat just about to cast off so I made a dash for it but just missed it.......t was a good job I missed it as it was not my ferry but a pleasure craft!!! I had visions aftwards of me leaping from the jetty onto the boat only to end up in the IOW!!!

The walk to the next ferry at Gosport was univentful and very flat, until I got to the army ranges at Browndown which were open so you could walk across, the only problem was that it was 2miles of shingle beach! I nearly got caught in the rush hour crush at the Gosport ferry as I ended up walking down the exit lane of the walk towards the ferry just as wall of commuters deposited of the incoming ferry! a quick leap over the chains dividing the lanes soon sorted me out before I was swamped!!!! Another trip thru a big town(Portsmouth) greeted me after the Gosport ferry....enough said. The second pic is of the Big sail at the mouth of the port at Portsmouth. A complete milage cock up again today as I thought I was only going to do 21 miles and ended up doing 25!!!! no wonder I was on my knees when I reached Southsea :(