Southampton to Plymouth

Saturday 9^th August

Today we returned to Southampton…the end of the Cruise.  We had a great time seeing all the new Ports and the special places and the experiences this Cruise provided. Now, we go back to land based adventures and new places.  The weather was fine and sunny in Southampton, so we walked down to pick up the car we had rented for the remaining 2 weeks of our trip. ‘Parked the car in the Hotel parking lot and got settled into our room. We then went for a walk down towards the Port area to see the Old Town. This little village was a walled City at one stage, still has some nice old buildings. A lot of the houses are lived in again now and some have been slightly modernised, but still have character. Did a bit of shopping and generally got ‘the lay of the land’.

Sunday 10^th August

Today we had intended to go out to Stonehenge to have a look around there, but, we awoke to pouring rain, high winds and a yukky day.  Decided to wait and see what the weather held later in the day….still raining, so no Stonehenge today.  When the rain eased off a wee bit, we ventured out for a walk. We accidently found where we would have to book a bus to get us to Heathrow on the 24^th, so went in and booked our tickets, with the help of the information fellow there. After venturing out a couple more times for a walk, we ended up staying in and watching the Rugby League Final for the afternoon. We are hoping the weather is better tomorrow as we have to drive to Plymouth.

Monday 11^th August

Dave’s 71st Birthday!  The weather today was as least fine, but didn’t really look all that promising. We packed up and left for Plymouth around 9:30 am, hoping to miss most of the ‘work’ traffic. We had 151 miles to go (around 240 odd kms). We had hoped that the roads would be highways or motorways really, but, some were, but most roads weren’t. I can’t begin to say how many roundabouts we went through. To say dozens wouldn’t be an exaggeration, trust me. It rained on and off most of the way and this heavy rain combined with the very narrow roads, and heavy traffic meant it took us 5 hours to reach Plymouth in the end. We did get a little lost on reaching Plymouth, but finally found our Hotel and got settled in. We are on a bus route into the City, so we plan to go into the City tomorrow, on the bus, and have a look around that area, so hope the rain holds off.

Tuesday 12^th August

A fine day today, so around 9 we took off for the bus stop and caught a bus into the City Centre. After arriving there we walked up to ‘The Hoe’ to see the areas we had been with the kids 37 years ago. We were in for a bit of a shock there, as there, on the Hoe, were numerous Side Show vehicles getting set up for the yearly Fireworks Championships being held tonight and tomorrow night, so all hope of reliving the memories of what this place looked like 37 years ago were dashed.  We did manage to get photos of the ‘must see’ Statues, especially the Drake one, without the side shows in them. We then walked down to the Port area known as The Barbican. Here numerous ferries leave for destinations over the waters and it was pretty busy down there with all the tourists in town for tonight’s celebrations/competition. The lady in the Information place told us that there wasn’t a room to be had in the town for the next couple of days. Lucky we booked so long ago. Dave needed to have his INR’s checked, so we found a Doctor and got that attended to, then returned to the Hotel  later on in the afternoon. It’s raining again. We had thought we might go into the City to watch the fireworks, but not in this rain. We are planning to go to Port Isaac tomorrow. Hope the weather is nice.