Museum to Museum
Friday 23 May
Friday 23 May
Today has started off overcast and raining with quite a bit of wind. Deb and I went to the Royal Navy Submarine Museum at Gosport in Hampshire. The museum is adjacent to what was the RN submarine training establishment, HMS Dolphin right next to Portsmouth Harbour on the western side. We were just about blown away getting from the car park to the museum which was about 500 m. HMS Dolphin was decommissioned in 1998 and is now a joint service establishment called Fort Blockhouse. I did try to get a look around but I wasn't allowed in.
The museum has some interesting exhibits. The first submarine in the Royal Navy, Holland 1, an X craft, X24 and HMS Alliance. Holland 1: Holland was the name of the designer and 1 indicates that it was the first boat in the Royal Navy. (Submarines are always called boats as distinct from ships that float on the surface). X Craft: These were British midget submarines designed and used during the Second World War. HMS Alliance: is an "A" class submarine that was designed during the Second World War and used up to the mid 1960's
We had a guided tour through Alliance and during the tour they played some audio. It is amazing what these sounds etc. were able to bring back to my mind. I hadn't dived a submarine since 1978 but with that audio it is amazing what I could recall.
We left Gosport and immediately got caught in traffic, not just a little bit but a lot. There were some breaks where we were able to get a bit of a go on but they didn't last for long. It got to a point on the motorway that the indicated speed was 40 mph, normally it is 70 mph.
When we planned our trip, the time given by Google Maps which is normally very good was 3 and a half hours. We left Gosport at 1.30 so reckoned that an arrival time of 5.00 to 5.30 would be good. We didn't get there until 8.30. The GPS took us all around the world for sixpence. It took us off the motorway and through some back roads. We haven't named the voice in our GPS yet but it is getting to a point where it won't be very nice. We finally got the iPad out and got ourselves back on track. Saw some really nice country so wasn't a complete waste of time.
Arrived at the Red Lion Pub in Stretham in time to get a meal and get things ready for the air show tomorrow.
Saturday 24 May
Overcast and raining today. Doesn't look good for the airshow but I'm going anyway. There are free buses departing from Cambridge Railway Station so Deb is going to take me in. If the aircraft don't get off the ground there are still the static displays to look through.
Got to the station and there was a sea of pushbikes. There were hundreds, if not thousands either put in the bike racks provided or stacked on each other. The Cambridge area is very flat and very conducive to riding of bikes. All the roads have bike lanes and most traffic lights have bike symbols that let the bikes proceed before the rest of the traffic.
Arrived at Duxford in a heavy shower. Arrived just on 9.00 o'clock and i started at the opposite end of the tarmac at the Land Warfare exhibit. I then moved on the the exhibit dedicated to the United States.
I think the big problem with something like Duxford for me anyway is that the time seems to fly. By the time I had gone through both those exhibits and had a cuppa it was time for lunch. This only gave me just over an hour to have a look through the AirSpace exhibition before the airshow began. Looks like I'll have to go back again sometime in the future.
The weather was on again off again. There were some periods of sunshine but mostly showery. It would have been nicer if it had been sunny but I was able to see the aircraft that I would not be able to see in Australia. Boeing B17, Curtis Hawk 75 and Hawker Hurricane.
I didn't stay around until the end. I left about 20 minutes before the completion and missed out on the Dakota and parachute display. I don't think I missed out on much. I was just too cold by then, the rain had started quite heavily and the wind had started to blow quite hard.
Deb had a quiet day at the hairdressers and laundromat but I'll let her do her own blog to tell you all about it.
I took over 300 photographs. I won't include them all.
After dinner we settled down for a quiet night when the fire alarm went off. We did the right thing and left the room and headed for the evacuation point. Evidently smoke from the disco machine set off the fire alarm so it was everybody out. It was sorted quickly and we went back to our room. Unfortunately we couldn't get back in. The latch on our lock had dropped and had locked the door shut on us. Even though we had the key we couldn't open it. Evidently it had happened before but nothing had been done. Luckily one of our windows was open so a ladder was used to access the room and open the door.
Fortunately the rest of the night was nice and quiet,
Sunday 25 May
Decided to head east towards Norwich today. It's just over an hour away and there is quite a bit of history in the town. Because of the problems we had with the GPS on Friday, giving us some poor directions we did some research on Google Maps to see times, directions etc. to Norwich. The directions given by the GPS seemed OK but we kept an eye on things as we went along. She was OK today.
We parked in a shopping centre called Castle Mall. This was right next to and just underneath Norwich Castle. The mall blends very well into the area and doesn't look out of place. We had a walk around the business district and like most towns in Britain contains some beautiful old buildings.
Kings Lynn is our target for today. "A" roads all the way so we were able to see a lot of the country. It appears that there is a lot of wheat planted and looks greener than the Australian varieties. We got to Kings Lynn just before 2.00 and were able to get in to the room not long after. We headed downtown to get a cuppa and look around. There is a lot of history around here. The bishop granted farmers the right to conduct a market in 1101, the town was granted a charter in 1204 by King John because it was the fourth busiest port in England.
The place where we had our afternoon tea had a number of models of various buildings and parts of the town showing places as they were at various points in time. The model dated 1603 shows quite a number of buildings that are still being used.
We also found a statue of a Captain George Vancouver RN who was born in Kings Lynn in 1757. Captain Vancouver explored the north west coast of the US and west coast of Canada. The cities of Vancouver in British Columbia and Vancouver in Washington State were named after him. aSince we have just been there I thought I would include it.
Deb and Den
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