TADS #49:Cosham to Portsmouth (or Heaven's Light Our Guide)

Well, that was fun.

Apart from one brief trip to the coast and the arcades about five years I'd not really visited Portsmouth (or Southsea) for the best part of twenty-five years. Not only has it changed a fair bit (I can't even imagine what the area around Gunwharf Quays was like in the eighties and nineties), I'd forgotten how much green space there was in the city - and just how much (mostly maritime) history. I'd certainly never walked around the edges of Portsea Island, been to Cosham, or visited Eastney Beach before.

Truth be told, I'd been a little anxious about how good the walk would actually be but, by the end of the day, everyone seemed to be in agreement that it had been yet another enjoyable TADS trek. The 49th since I began blogging them.

The sun certainly helped with that and it was up in the sky before I rose at 5am. I'd left home before 0800hrs, taken the train from Honor Oak Park to East Croydon where I met with Mo (both of us staring in confusion at the destination boards in the station) and we took a busy, seaside and airport special, train down to Cosham.

In Cosham (the HQ of IBM UK and named, in Saxon, for a man called Cossa's homestead) we ambled gently up the cafe and charity shop filled High Street to a branch of old favourite Poppin's. Pam was next to join us and then, all together - they had all come in the same car, Adam, Teresa, Shep, Neil, and Bee. Until our special guests arrived it was the exact same gang that had, just last month, walked from Benfleet to Southend.

I had a mug of tea with cheese omelette, chips, beans, and bread and butter. That would have been enough on its own but Shep gave me his (incredibly tasty) fried bread so I was pretty full before I left. The veggie, and non-veggie, breakfasts, that others tucked in to looked pretty satisfying as well. Nobody had room for pancakes, sundaes, or knickbocker glories (though they looked fine on the menu alongside our old friends Bangerman, Jimmy Jacket, Pizza Pan, and Wizard) so we headed back down the High Street and met with three new walkers.

Joe, Isaac, and Jess are all half the age of the next youngest walker but that's not so surprising as Joe and Isaac are Adam and Teresa's kids. It was really nice to have them along and I hope they can come again. As they live in Portsmouth though, they'll have to travel a bit further next time!

We passed through a grotty subway (standard) under the M27 and arrived on Portsea Island. It's the most densely populated island in the whole of the British Isles and the third most populated in total (roughly 200,000 people live here) - only the islands of Britain and Ireland are homes to more people! Take that Canvey, Isle of Wight, and Anglesey.

We soon picked up a picturesque, and fairly flat - this was not a walk in which hills would play a part, alongside Hilsea Moat and Portsbridge Creek. To the other side of us stood the Hilsea Links, 18/19c fortifications built to protect the island. Fortification which began during the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547) but still didn't prevent Parliamentarians capturing the fort, in 1642, during the English Civil War.

Once upon a time the only way to reach the island from the mainland was via a series of stepping stones across the creek but it's fully linked by roads and trains now and the path seems popular with dog walkers, local waterfowl, and, a few of us had to do a double take here, a cyclist whose lycra outfit had been specially designed to give each of us a view of his bare bum. 

Naked cyclists were spotted later in the day so, who knows?, perhaps that's a thing that happens on warm days on the south coast! A series of pretty green footpaths took us into, and through, Anchorage Park and into a Morrison's car park. A car park which was home to the Compass Rose pub and Chinese restaurant. Far too early in the walk for a pub stop and, to be fair, not the most enticing inn.

I suppose if drinking in Morrison's car parks is your thing it's a better option than a five litre bottle of Frosty Jack's! Due to some improvement works with the coastal path, there was a fairly long roadside stretch in which Adam and Neil tried to entice Shep into holding their hands. He claimed that, short of wearing a Southampton football jersey, it'd be one of the most dangerous things to do in Portsmouth!

Hmmm! The views across Langstone Harbour to Hayling Island were delightful and we followed the straightish contour of the edge of Portsea Island past an area put aside for remembrance of lives lost in wars, a selection of flags - again mostly relating to the forces, and a series of lakes:- Frog Lake, Duck Lake, and, of course, Swan Lake.

The water looked beautiful shining in the bright early afternoon sun. The colours ranging from light blue to a hazy shade of green, from turquoise to a highly appropriate navy blue. The Thatched House was painted as if to mix in and though I'd had low expectations a series of large wooden tables facing out to the water made it too inviting not to stop.

To be honest, by the time I'd got there Shep and Pam were already at the bar. Which meant I had a nice tasty pint of Madri in my hands in no time. The pub itself was busy with families eating, an almost overpowering smell of food - but perhaps that's because I was still full of Poppin's, but the garden had a most delightful aspect and, of course, the inevitable two pint mistake occurred. We were making good time so why not?

There followed a rather nondescript section along residential streets but soon we arrived at Eastney Beach in the south east of Portsea Island. Shingles dotted with sea kale plants marked the place where Dr Who, in the form of Jon Pertwee, fought with The Sea Devils in 1971/2.

Views across the Solent, busy with cargo ships, to the Isle of Wight (and, specifically, the town of Ryde) were enjoyed but, unlike three hardy souls, none of us took a dip in the probably chilly waters!

Instead, we carried along the Esplanade (discussing how to pronounce that word - 'ard' or 'aid'?) for a couple of kilometres before, after calling Shep back - he'd charged ahead - ankle presumably much better now, dipping into a pretty Rose Garden that lead us into a larger park that featured a model village, mini golf, tennis courts, and a boating lake. Even a natural history museum.

I'd have been quite tempted by a game of mini golf but was outvoted. It was good, however, to see that the Canoe Lake didn't just have swan boats but duck ones as well. I wondered why they'd not gone further and had coots, moorhens, and Egyptian geese but that might have been simply too much temptation!

The other side of the park we passed by what appeared to be a large metal testicle and an even larger wallside map of Portsmouth and its most famous sons and daughters (none of which we recognised) before pulling up for another pit stop at the surprisingly quite empty, but very pleasant, Florence Arms.

From there it was a stroll through the beating heart of Southsea, a quick rendition of Sham 69's Hurry Up Harry from Neil, a first glimpse of the Spinnaker Tower (more later), a look at the large Naval Memorial across the windswept Southsea Common (where, in 1994 I attended a free festival headlined by the unlikely combination of Shakin' Stevens and Stiff Little Fingers) and, eventually, Clarence Pier.

When we were still at school, Shep and I took a very long series of bus journeys to Southsea's Clarence Pier and as we had £1 between us he had a ride on the Meteor while I watched (it was his £1) and then we went home.

Although no fair rides were taken yesterday it's safe to say we probably had more than one pound between us - and would have needed to should we wanted to go on any of the rides. Instead, Mo busied herself with the Penny Falls machine (I'd had my fill with Michelle and Evie in Hafan y Mor the previous weekend) and, with the help of Joe and Isaac, I searched out a whack-a-mole machine as I had been promising all day.

Those moles don't whack themselves. Except, on Clarence Pier, they're not moles, or even crocs. You can't even, as I once did, bash a burglar. Instead you get to clobber minions on their smug bonces. I remember my friend Alex being overtaken by a man dressed as a minion during the Oxford Town & Gown 10k and as she once lived in Portsmouth I felt it would be a suitable place for to finally enjoy some revenge.

I actually love tacky old funfairs and arcades like Clarence Pier and I could easily have stayed on and gone on a couple of the rides, eaten some donuts, and played the Sega Daytona machine. Instead I gave the tickets I'd won assaulting plastic hydraulically operated minions to a grateful small child and had a fairly ginormous mint choc chip ice cream which melted very quickly in the sun.

Near Clarence Pier, the hovercrafts leave for Ryde but we only saw a large Wightlink ferry come in before heading past the remains of the 13c Royal Garrison church, stopping to admire the statue of Nelson (who was actually born in Norfolk but has been long associated with the naval city for obvious reasons) and the curiously modern looking (despite dating to the 12c) cathedral. 

Though Nelson was not a Portsmouth native, the city does claim as its own such notables as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Dickens, James Callaghan, Peter Sellers, and Christoper Hitchens. There's so much Portsmouth history that I would simply refer you to Wikipedia for further reading but it is worth noting, here, that Arnold Schwarzenegger briefly called Pompey home!

Past pretty pastel shaded terraces and with reminders of Portsmouth's more quotidian past in the form of closed down little pubs, we entered into Gunwharf Quays. I'd never been before and though the shops and restaurants are, mostly, the same chain outlets you get in almost every city of the UK, it has been sympathetically laid out and feels like a place you could simply hang out without, as with so many of these retail areas, feeling badgered into constant consumption.

Perhaps the weather made me feel that way but the sculpture of a whale's tail and the view up to the Spinnaker as well as the (slightly) inland docks all gave an impression that reminded me of a slightly smaller version of Bristol's Harbourside Area. Even if Portsmouth's dock were lacking a toppled statue of a former slave trader.

Built between 2001 and 2005, the Spinnaker Tower is 170m (560ft) tall (I'd half expected to see it from almost every vantage point on Portsea Island but that was not the case) and is named after a type of sail which it also shaped like to reflect Portsmouth's maritime history. Its former mascot Spring seems to have been consigned to history.

As do many of the large clipper ships scattered, decoratively and imposingly, around this dockland area. Most impressively, the very large iron-hulled warship the HMS Warrior. Decommissioned in 1883, it now sits silently keeping a vigil over the local area while at the same time being used as a museum. 

One that would surely be worth visiting one day though we only had about half an hour before the curry was booked and the long and thin Ship & Castle pub looked like a well placed option for one last pub stop before we hit Alfa Tandoori.

And so it proved to be - even though it was a bit of a rush to get a whole pint down. Adam had no such problems with his Rekoderlig strawberry-lime alcohol free cider which, to me - not a fan of cider anymore, sounds wrong on so many levels.

Just down the road, the Alfa Tandoori didn't look too impressive at first. A completely empty restaurant, the business must rely on take away sales, with four small tables each of which had a tablecloth covered with a see through piece of plastic. I mean, some of us are messy eaters but still!

There was no music and just a small television showing Nick Kyrgios triumph in a spectacularly bad tempered display over Stefanos Tsitsipas at Wimbledon. There was also no alcohol license though most of us (Adam and Mo aside) popped over to a local Co-Op for supplies. Mostly Cobra lager though Joe went for a combo of Asahi and Tyskie (Polish loopy juice) while Bee got all sophisticated with a mix of wine and gins in tins.

The food (I had Bombay potatoes, tarka dall, and garlic naan - we all shared poppodoms), however, was great (as it so often is in these seeming unprepossessing places) and so was the service. One guy eagerly, and quickly, attending to ten people's needs.

As is always the case, the evening started to zip by too quickly and soon it was time for Mo, Pam, and myself to say goodbye to everyone else and make haste to Portsmouth & Southsea station. We took the train to East Croydon. There Mo left us and Pam and I hung around for about twenty minutes waiting. We took the same train, she departed at Streatham Common, some lunatic on the train muttered some incoherent threat at me (several times - in fact - but it wasn't going to ruin my day) so I moved carriages, jumped off at Peckham Rye, took the 363 bus home, and promptly fell asleep in front of the television.

What a lovely day and what a lovely bunch of people to spend it with. Thanks to each and every one of them and thanks to Bee, Mo, Pam, Teresa, and Adam for some of the snaps I've used in this blog. It's quite a wait for the next TADS walk now but as that one will be a two-dayer, and something of a little holiday, in Llandudno that wait will, surely, be worth it.

Heaven's Light Our Guide may be Portsmouth's motto but luckily the only guide we needed yesterday was our own feet, a sheet of A4 paper, and the occasional look on the GPS on our phone. You can see below just how happy we were to be beside the seaside.