Isle of Wight, June 2024: When I'm sixty-four

I'm not sure whether that's how regular content creators feel most of the time.

It starts with a mildely funny idea.

And then you spend a lot of effort to follow up on that. Increasingly wondering whether the idea was good enough to justify the effort. Or whether it would have been better to mention the idea as a silly thing that could be done. And leave it at that.

For example, it's one thing to have the idea to put different things in a blender and see what happens.

I haven't followed that specific activity on the web. But I assume there are a dozen things where this might be interesting to find out.

And I also assume that after doing that for 14 years and 113 episodes, it gets tedious.

This might be a bad example, as that was an advertising campaign. And not someone doing it 'for fun'.

But there are also many web sites that are based on one moderately interesting idea. As well as many activities. The Guinness World Records is full of these. It's a fun idea to imagine pushing an orange with your nose for a while. But it doesn't seem something that's worth actually doing.

In the same way, it seemed like a fun idea to base my birthday vacation destination on an old song.

I'm not sure whether it was worth going through the effort of doing it.

But, then again, why not?

It was, literally, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The song is, obviously, "When I'm sixty-four" by the Beatles.

And in one line, it mentions the Isle of Wight.

So, in absence of any better idea, why not go there on my sixty-fourth birthday?

Lot's of reasons, actually.

The Isle of Wight has been voted top place in the UK to retire.

It's a bit for the UK what Florida is for the US.

Yes, there are fun things to do in Florida (and on the Isle of Wight) if you aren't retired. But in both cases, it sets the basic tone and the primary target group for things on offer.

After all, that's the reason why Paul McCartney uses the Isle of Wight in his song. It is a place where you might go when you get old.

But then again, it's only an extended weekend, so why not got there? Because of a song.

And, to sweeten the deal, I could get to the Isle of Wight per hovercraft.

It is (as far as I know) the last regular scheduled hovercraft service in the world.

And I'm (slightly) nostalgic for hovercraft.

It was one of the promises of a future that never happened.

When I was a child, the first supersonic passenger jets took off the ground. Hovercrafts started to ferry cars across the English Channel and men walked on the moon.

And while that was, at that time, something only available for the 'chosen few', it always felt like those technologies would be commonplace by the time I had grown up.

Of course, the Concorde no longer flies, the cross-channel hovercrafts are now museum pieces and nobody goes to the moon any more. (Except for vague promises of 'any time soon'. But it's not something that is going to be available to everyone.)

For some reason I can't get as excited about personal jetpacks, flying cars or steam locomotives.

But hovercrafts are nice.

And there's also a hovercraft museum in Lee-on-the-Solent. While that's not on the Isle of Wight, it's not far away on the mainland. And, given that hovercrafts always have been a niche technology, it not only 'a' hovercraft museum, but 'the' hovercraft museum.

While it was unlikely that I would do anything exciting on the Isle of Wight, there would at least be hovercraft watching.

(And, because it is such a niche technology, it's almost impossible to get too involved in the topic. For a proper trainspotter, it might take years until he has seen all the still-active steam trains in the UK. A hovercraft spotter only needs to stand for about half an hour on a bridge in Ryde to see all commercially operating hovercrafts that are left. Both of them. You can acquire a new hobby and leave it with a complete collection of sightings in time for pre-dinner drinks.)

Travel from mainland UK to the Isle of Wight is swift.

You leave from the Hoverport in Portsmouth (a ticket office and a small bit of beach, next to a small fun park).

You pass the regular ferry.

And you arrive at a small beach section. Right next to the hotel that I was staying in.

The whole trip takes about 10 minutes. There is no specific emphasis on comfort. The interior of the hovercraft is as utilitarian as that of a bus.

And while the trip is speedy, it also shows why hovercrafts aren't much in use anymore.

The reason why a hovercraft service to the Isle of Wight makes sense, is that Ryde has a shallow shoreline. Even a few hundred meters out at sea, the water depth might be less than a meter.

Unless there's low tide. And there's no water at all.

All perfect for a hovercraft.

For a hovercraft it doesn't matter whether the water is 10 meters or 10 centimeters deep. Or not there at all.

You drive over whatever is there and arrive, independently of any tide tables, at Ryde.

Except...

...you can also build a pier across the shallow parts until you reach water that's deep enough for a normal ferry.

Ryde has a 530-meter-long pier (the second largest in the UK), which was built way back in 1814.

And that's where the regular ferry docks.

Which means that the hovercraft solves a problem (going over shallow tidal waters) that has been solved more than two centuries earlier.

And while the hovercraft is more than twice as fast as the ferry, that means it has a crossing time of 10 minutes instead of 22 minutes.

There won't be many situations in which arriving in Ryde twelve minutes earlier is going to be relevant.

The market niche where hovercrafts have a unique advantage is so small, that hovercrafts don't find a way into it.

They are more a curiosity, like steam trains being run by enthusiasts on some train lines, than anything else.

In any case, I had arrived in Ryde.

After all, the Beatles didn't sing "when I'm sixty-four, I will ride a hovercraft".

The main idea behind this trip was to be on the Isle of Wight on my birthday.

It's not like I was splashing out on my birthday vacation.

I wasn't staying in a "cottage in the Isle of Wight", whatever the song says.

I was staying in an old-fashioned English seaside hotel.

And that means, well, compact rooms.

And the view out of the window wasn't out towards to hovercrafts.

Part of the reason for that was unlucky timing.

While the Isle of Wight is a popular vacation destination in the UK, it should not be too crowded in June.

But there is one annual event going on - the Isle of Wight Festival - which brings about 60000 extra visitors to the Isle of Wight. And that coincided with my birthday. As I wasn't going to move that and they wouldn't reschedule their festival either, there was a small conflict of interests.

Which means that most accommodations on the islands were already booked by the time I decided to go there. Good for the tourist business on the Isle of Wight, but bad news for finding an exciting place to stay.

Given the initial theme of the trip, the hotel I had selected was probably the least fitting.

According to their web page about the history of the hotel, they were "the only hotel on the Isle of Wight to cancel and fully refund The Beatles when they wished to stay", as, back in the days, they were "fearful for her staffs and guests wellbeing".

So, given the already tedious link between a Beatles song and my visit to the Isle of Wight, I ended up in the one hotel that actively turned the Beatles away.

Well...

As someone once sang: "I should have known better".

But enough with the obscure song references and on with the trip.

I didn't rent a car on the Isle of Wight. (Note: I originally mistyped this line and wrote "I didn't rent a cat on the Isle of Wight." I didn't do that either.)

I normally don't use a bicycle (I don't even own one), but I thought it would be worth trying out whether e-bikes would be something I like.

It seemed to me that they are something like low powered electrical motorbikes (which I don't own or have used either).

Turns out they aren't.

They kind of combine the worst parts of bicycle driving with the worst part of carrying a bag of gold. Without the benefits.

First of all, e-bikes are heavy. Even a cheap steel-frame, single-speed Dutch country bike is easier to drive (and carry) than an e-bike.

Which means that you need to use the motor all the time.

The bike had three power settings for the motor. And it had to be on setting one to offset the fact that it was as agile as a concrete block. Below that, it was a torture machine. I sometimes use an exercise bike to prepare for dog sled tours. And running that at the 140 Watt level is easier work than riding the e-bike without the motor running.

And as e-bikes are expensive (I think mine had a price tag of around 3000 pounds), you can't park them anywhere.

I had asked at the bike rental whether I could chain it to a fence overnight. And they strongly asked me to avoid that, if at all possible. And the Isle of Wight is not exactly a crime hotspot. (Chaining the bike somewhere during the day was ok, though.)

E-bikes are harder to park than cars (at least there are still some parking spaces to be found, occasionally) and harder to park than regular priced bikes. (Which you can chain to a fence and there's a 50:50 chance that it's still there the next day. At least where I live...)

Fortunately, the hotel was very nice about it and gave me access to one of their function rooms, which wasn't used that week. The e-bike had a nice and stylish place to stay. Although carrying it there wasn't fun at all.

So that's the like the "worst part of carrying a bag of gold". It's heavy, it's expensive and you shouldn't leave it somewhere unattended.

As for the worst part of it being like a bike...

You have to pedal constantly.

I had assumed that I would ride the bike normally for a bit. And then get lazy (it was a vacation after all) and run on electric power the rest of the time.

But what happens seems to be (and I'm not sure whether that is how it should work or whether I did something wrong), is that the e-bike keeps your level of effort constant for the speed you're going.

When the power is in the lowest setting, it feels like a normal bicycle. And when it's slightly uphill and you switch to level two, it still feels like a normal bicycle. And going properly uphill, you can switch to full power and still cycle normally.

The e-bike makes the whole cycling world feel flat.

Which is nice, but except for that, you're still cycling.

This means you can't simple sit back and let the motor do all the work.

And you can't run at 30 mph, unless you're really fit and a good cyclist. (Especially as we're talking 30 mph on, essentially, a heavy city bike and not a lightweight racing bike.)

Which would be nice in the Netherlands. (But then, there aren't many uphill sections there. If you want the experience of riding a single speed city bike there, you might as well use one.) Or in other places that have wide roads or a good bike lane system.

On the Isle of Wight, it's...inconvenient.

There are some trails that are also for bikes. And they're ok.

But the UK is really good on "public rights of way" (which had become a thing of national pride after the mass trespass almost a century ago). And there are many public footpaths on the Isle of Wight..

But they are mostly that: footpaths.

Some of them also allow bikes, but many don't (or aren't suitable for riding a bike on, unless you have a serious BMX or Fat Tire bike).

So you either spend a lot of time driving slowly around people walking their dogs on the wider, paved trails. Or you take the easy way out. And drive along roads.

Which is easier to do, the surface is better, it is faster and roads tend to take you more directly to where you want to go. (Although, admittedly, often less scenic.)

But on a road, you're an annoyance.

English country roads are often narrow and there's not enough room to pass a lone cyclist if there is oncoming traffic.

And there's no place to go for the cyclist either.

While all the hedges on the side of the road look idyllic, you can't go to the side of the road.

As I am not a regular cyclist and have more often rented cars than bicycles, I felt a bit guilty about being in the way. So every time there was some access to a field somewhere, I stopped at the side of the road and let the dozen cars that had piled up behind me go past.

It would have been easier if I had some sort of speed control and could have driven along the road at 35 mph and match the speed of the cars. But I don't cycle at that speed. And I'm not enough of a regular cyclist to ignore all the cars behind me.

In summary, I don't think an e-bike is something I'll buy anytime soon...

Something that also irritated me was how uncomfortable it was.

The bike had a small, almost unpadded, saddle.

And I don't understand why.

It makes (kind of) sense to have these small and hard seats on proper racing bikes. Every gram of weight counts and racers essentially stand on the bike most of the time.

But e-bikes, where weight doesn't matter (it's going to be heavy no matter what), are something for doing long distances in comfort. And I don't see the point in spending that time on something that feels like sitting on an oddly shaped brick.

I did drive around a bit on the bike on the day I arrived. Going to Quarr Abbey, having a cup of tea and then following the 'Coastal Path' back to Ryde. (The 'Coastal Path' is hiking trail going around the whole island. Parts of it are also useable with bicycles, but the 'Round the Island' bike route is different and overlaps only for short sections. For example, the 'Round the Island' trail doesn't go to Ryde at all. But even the 'Coastal Path' goes for long stretches without any sight of the coast in the sections west of Ryde.)

And while it was nice to have a short 'test drive' to the Abbey and back, I decided that I wanted a bit more fun while driving around as well.

So I took the e-bike and drove to the kart track near Ryde.

A nice track, but few visitors.

In fact, I did two 15 minute runs and was the only one on the track.

Fun though. It's nice going around corners without keeping an eye out for other karts. I was (kind of) irrationally pleased by the fact that I managed to achieve the second-best lap time of the week. Of course, that was on a Thursday afternoon, with most drivers likely to come in during the next weekend. Although, looking it up now on their web page, I ended up 9th best driver of that week. Of, well, 33 in total. And I ended up, for June 2024, on place 120 (out of 427). Overall, not that great. But it was fun. And much easier than riding the e-bike.

Next day was my 64th birthday (or 1000000 in binary). And I did some more e-biking.

The 'Round the Island' trail seemed a bit daunting. It is about 100 km long. As I doubt I ever rode more than 10 kms at a stretch on a bike, it was something I didn't want to try. Especially I wasn't sure how long the battery would last. I probably wouldn't make 100 km with motor support. And the idea that I might have to move a heavy bike for the last 20 km with leg power alone wasn't appealing.

I also considered to go to "The Needles", which is a rock formation off the western end of the Isle of Wight. The are speedboat tours around the "Needles", which seemed like fun. But it was pretty much on the other side of the island. So while it wouldn't be 'full circle', it would still be about 35 km each way. And that would be along the main street across the island for almost all the way. Not particularly scenic, holding up traffic all the time and going back exactly the same way.

In the end, I decided to head for the looped part of the Red Squirrel trail.

The 'Red Squirrel' trail starts at Cowes and goes towards Merstone. From Merstone, there's an approximately 15-mile loop, before the trail heads back the same way to Cowes.

As Ryde isn't on that trail and driving to Cowes and back would have added about 30 km to the distance, I didn't do the Cowes-Merstone part. I took (more or less) the Coastal Path towards Sandown, which is on the looped part of the trail. The idea was to continue along the loop and either drive back to Ryde when I reached Sandown again. Or leave the loop somewhere else and get back to Ryde on a more direct route.

The whole plan only 'kind of' worked. I had made a list of all the places I would be passing through and had images of the trail sections downloaded onto my tablet. But the bike didn't have a way to attach anything to the handle bar, so all my stuff was in my backpack.

When I wanted to find my bearings, I had to stop, take the backpack off, get the stuff out and look at some images. So I didn't do it that often. Usually when I was sure that I was off the planned route.

I had hoped that most of the trails were well signposted (the coastal path I had used the day before had been). But there were a larger number of turns that weren't signposted than I had expected.

Something that didn't help much were the map images I had downloaded.

While they are nice, hand-drawn and pleasant to look at, they do show the route you should take.

And not much beyond that.

So while the map will show that the trail goes under two bridges and then you need to turn left and a short bit later right again, it often neglects to name the streets onto which you have to turn.

Which is ok when there are signposts for the trail..

When they are missing, however, there's some guesswork involved.

And if you get off-trail, things become even more difficult, as that's mostly blank space. Once you leave the trail at some point, there's no way to find out how to get back to it.

Admittedly, there are downloadable GPS tracks and Google Maps all that, which makes things easy, if you can see them while cycling. But with only the hand-drawn maps and a list of places to drive through, navigation was a bit erratic.

In the end, it didn't matter much.

I hadn't any specific interest in the 'Red Squirrel' trail. It had been a convenient loop trail for cycling. But if I went along another route, it didn't matter. There was nothing specific along the route that I wanted to see.

Something that I had wanted to visit was the animal sanctuary in Sandown. But that only required getting to Sandown somehow (which isn't that hard to find) and not to follow any specific route.

The animal sanctuary is a bit odd.

Often animal sanctuaries are for local animals, like donkeys, horses, dogs or, maybe, otters.

The usually don't have the 'impressive zoo animals', like lions, tigers, elephants or rhinos.

The one in Sandown is an odd mix. While they do have goats and rabbits, ...

...well, supposedly they have rabbits, bit they are probably in Mallorca or something...

... they also have tigers, lions, lemurs and meerkats.

And, of course, a greenhouse and a herb garden.

Which doesn't have that much to do with the sanctuary (it didn't look like they grew food for herbivores), but more that the fact that this is England. And by tradition and mentality, every bit of soil needs to be a garden.

They will get a couple of mistreated bears soon - at least the enclosure is ready for use - but they weren't there yet. Possibly having a picnic in the woods with the rabbits.

I was there in time for the feeding of the lions. Well, the feeding of the lioness, with a guest appearance by the lion.

To keep their big cats fit, they turn feeding into a challenge.

The food is attached to a tree somewhere, so the lions need to put a bit of effort into ripping of pieces of bones and meat.

They have one male and one female lion. And to avoid food fights, one of them is fed inside the "lion's den", while the other one is let outside and has to work for the food. (This changes every time they are fed. The next day, the male lion will be the one that needs to get the meat from the tree, while the female lion has an easy meal.)

Once the lioness loses interest in the bits still stuck to the tree, the male lion is let out to finish any left-overs.

It's one of the moments where you wonder whether the rabbits have really gone on holiday. (Though that would have required a massive rabbit.)

All in all, it's a strange place.

It doesn't have the 'completeness' of a zoo. They take zoo or circus animals when they need sanctuary, but they have no need or interest to fill 'gaps' in their collection. While they have monkeys and lemurs, they don't have any apes. And no zebras, camels, wolves, foxes or hippos either.

On the other hand, they don't have the 'usual' animal shelter species, like house cats or dogs,

Odd mix, but an interesting place.

Except for the animal shelter, I didn't stop much.

Kept cycling and looked at the scenery.

Which, along the coast, was often filled with beach huts.

(Although the last picture was taken on the mainland at Lee-on-Solent the next day and not on the Isle of Wight.)

Originally, they were mostly intended as changing rooms and storage sheds for beach gear. But they now are cozy shelters along the shore.

It was pre-season, so most of them were closed when I went by. But a few of them were in use and I could look inside. While people did use it to store some beach chairs and foldable tables, so they could sit outside, most had a small gas cooker, a table and benches inside, so they could sit in their hut, enjoy some tea and watch the world outside.

I am not sure how much that ties in with the other shore related 'British tradition' of driving to a parking spot close to the sea. And then remain in the car, have some sandwiches, tea from a thermos, look at the sea for a while and then drive back home.

Once away from the beaches and a bit more inland, the Isle of Wight becomes green and idyllic - a stereotypical English landscape.

While I didn't manage to follow the route I had originally planned, I did cycle (with e-motor support) 54 km that day, which is the longest I've ever been on a bicycle. (The idea didn't occur to me on that day anyway, but I doubt I would have done another 10 km to be able to say that I rode 64 km on my 64th birthday.)

In the evening I went to a neat restaurant in Ryde for a good birthday dinner.

The next day, I took a (regular) ferry back to the English mainland and a bus to Lee-on-Solent to visit the hovercraft museum.

The (literally) big attraction there is the SN.R4 hovercraft "The Princess Anne", which was one of the hovercrafts ferries between Dover and Calais.

The name is a bit strange. According to the outside of the craft, the name is "The Princess Anne", which looks a bit odd if you list all the SN.R4 hovercrafts that were build. Namely, the "Sure", the "Swift", the "Sir Christopher", the "The Prince of Wales", the "The Princess Anne" and the "The Princess Margaret". Might have been better to take the indefinite article out of the name. But it's too late now. (The "Sir Christopher" is named after Christopher Cockerell, the inventor of the hovercraft, and has nothing to do with Christopher Lee or Christopher Wren.)

On the inside, the "The Princess Anne" still looks pretty much the same as back in 2000, when I had crossed the English Channel in it.

2000	2024

Though the lack of changes isn't surprising. I travelled with the "The Princess Anne" a week before the hovercraft was taken out of service and became a museum piece.

Given that it's the last of its kind, it is in a surprisingly bad state. While the museum relies on a few enthusiasts and supporters to keep the exhibits presentable, it is clearly not enough. There's decay everywhere.

And it the last big hovercraft in existence. The "The Princess Margaret" was scrapped six years ago as it took up too much space. Which is distinctly odd. Yes, it's 60 meter long and 25 meter wide. And there might not have been enough place at Lee-on-Solent to keep it. But scrapping it?

It's weird.

But it's also a sign how much hovercrafts have vanished from public perception.

There are still seventeen Avro Lancaster bombers (two even airworthy) and 202 Supermarine Spitfires in the world. And all of the Concordes (except the one that crashed and one used for spare parts) are in museums somewhere. And they are wider, longer and taller than the SR.N4. Even the Spruce Goose and the RMS Queen Mary are still around somewhere.

And when they had only two of the Channel hovercraft left, they put one on the junkyard and let the other decay?

Visiting the Hovercraft Museum was a bit depressing.

I have to admit, though, that they do have a good collection of hovercrafts.

In the outside area, beside the SN.R4, they have a military hovercraft, the BH7.

They also have an AP1-88 'Falcon', an SR.N6 and an C22.

(The yellow one is the AP1-88 'Falcon', the red one is the SR.N6, while the C22 is the one in camouflage colours.)

The AP1-88 seems to be in a decent state - at least the interior seems well preserved.

In the two hangars, they have all kinds of hovercrafts, from strange 'hobbyist constructions', like the hovercrafts built as part of a scrapyard challenge or a Mini car converted to a hovercar, all the way to mid-size, factory built, passenger hovercraft like the SRN6 Mk 1, which used to run the Solent service to the Isle of Wight.

But there are also a number of early and experimental models, including a 'hoverdisc', as well as small, personal and racing hovercrafts for enthusiasts..

I have driven a small hovercraft back in 1998, but that specific type didn't make it into the museum.

A bit strange was the 'Bond' section of the exhibit.

They have two hovercrafts that featured in "Die Another Day".

On one of them, an Osprey 5, they had a paper cut-out of someone in a Bond-like suit, striking a pose, with some sort of generic 'hero face'. Definitely not the face of Pierce Brosnan.

I figured that the museum had purchased the hovercraft, but couldn't afford the right to use the likeness of any Bond actor, so they had used some "looks a bit like Bond, but sufficiently different that we don't get sued" cardboard picture.

Oddly enough, the other hovercraft, a Slingsby SAH 2200, not only does have a 'proper' Pierce Brosnan cardboard cut-out on it, but also a small monitor showing segments of the movie. No idea why they used the 'not a real James Bond' picture on the other craft.

Not surprisingly, for anyone who has ever driven a hovercraft, they fitted some of the hovercrafts used for filming with wheels underneath. It's notoriously difficult to steer a hovercraft precisely. Mostly, they go where they want to go and you try to nudge them into the right direction. In a movie, where there are extras, stuntmen and explosions placed on specific positions. an 'it will approximately go that way' is not good enough, so they often inflated the 'shirt' for show and then drove through the scene like a car.

It's a lot of stuff that's interesting to hovercraft enthusiasts, including the possibility to enter many of the hovercrafts and look at the control panels. (And while the hovercraft itself was scrapped, at least the kept the control cabin of the "The Princess Margaret".)

I enjoyed the museum a lot. But if you're not already excited about hovercrafts, it's unlikely that the museum will create that excitement. It feels too much like an elephant's graveyard for hovercraft. Or a glorified hovercraft junkyard. It will likely continue to exist while there are still people around who have fond memories of seeing hovercrafts as a child. But the hovercrafts will rot and decay faster than the volunteers can fix them. And once the big SR.N4 falls apart, the rest museum will likely close and the other hovercrafts will be scrapped as well. (If the museum holds out that long. The "The Princess Margaret" was already destroyed to make same space for some scheme by a housing corporation. There's a good chance that the housing corporation might propose another redevelopment of the site and that'll be the end of the history of hovercrafts for the general public.)

When I made my way back to Portsmouth, I noticed two things.

Most of the benches along the shore had flower decorations.

It looked nice from the distance, but close up, it was a bit strange.

All benches are dedicated to someone deceased.

The benches had labels like "Dedicated to Mark (1929-2011), who loved sitting here, watching the sea".

So far, so good.

Why not sponsor a bench in the name of someone?

But the flowers seemed to make a competition out of mourning.

"Look, I'm having two pots of flowers here, while you only have one. My grief is twice as good as yours, you cheapskate!"

"But mine is a weekly fresh mix of flowers, while you only put in new forget-me-not's every second week!"

"Look at me, I've put in a whole row of flowerpots on my bench. My sadness is the best of all!"

The whole thing seems a bit unworthy.

But the "Council appreciates the desire to commemorate loved ones by placing living floral tributes". Sigh.

Something that the council does not seem to appreciate are teenagers.

There is a small skate park next to the beach, but that is "temporarily closed due to an uneven surface". (I was glad that the council didn't look at the beach or the sea on the other side, or they might have closed down both of them because of their uneven surface.)

While the skate park isn't in pristine condition, it's no worse than hundreds of others.

I'm a bit cynical about it, but I think it's unlikely that it will be repaired anytime soon. Or ever.

It feels more like someone complained about noisy kids. And the geriatric council, busy with appreciating floral tributes, tried to find some grounds of getting rid of them.

According the official district web page, the "Council is currently considering possible future options", which doesn't sound like "we will repair it soon". More like "let's put in more benches, as they create more income for the council." It's also interesting that they claim "the equipment, surfaces and location of the park pose an unacceptable risk". While I can't say anything meaningful about the first two points (except that it didn't look that way), it seems strange that "the location" poses a risk. Shouldn't they have noticed that when they built the skate park?

It turns out my cynicism was justified.

I tried to find out since when the skate park was "temporarily closed" and according to a BBC web page, that was back in 2022. (The skatepark had only opened in 2019.)

By now (actually in May 2024) the statement of the council is that "it had been permanently closed" and "cannot re-open". (Which is a somewhat interesting choice of words. I would have thought that something like "terrible concrete surfacing and ramp safety barriers" would be in the realm of fixable things. But, obviously not for the local Council.)

Admittedly, I have no special interest in that. I don't live in the area. I don't skate. I'm not a teenager.

But it is strange that all it takes is to see an official note on a barrier to make an assumption about the dishonesty of the local politicians. And then check up on it and find that the initial prejudiced assessment was spot on.

On to something else...

I took the bus back to Portsmouth and went to see Spinnaker Tower.

It's an observation tower built in 2005.

And, unfortunately, I hadn't done my homework.

When I decided to go to the Isle of Wight, I had only looked up possible activities on the Isle of Wight itself (of which there weren't that many interesting ones). I didn't pay any attention to any place on the south coast of England, except for the hovercraft museum (of which I already knew).

The first time I found out about Spinnaker Tower was when I was standing at the hoverport in Portsmouth.

I did see Spinnaker Tower and wondered what it was.

It didn't look like a TV tower (not enough antennas), but also not like an office building (not enough floors).

I looked it up and learned that it had an observation platform. And a glass floor. And that there was a small platform on the side of it, from which you could abseil a hundred meters.

Which seemed like something fun to do, especially after celebrating my 64th birthday. (In a kind of "older, but not wiser" attitude.)

But I had learned to late about it.

They didn't do abseils on Fridays anyway (so I couldn't have done it on my birthday), and it was fully booked on Saturday, so I didn't get the opportunity to do it then. Bad luck. Especially as slots don't seem to fill up early. If you book a week ahead, there are usually still spaces available. (For example, I'm checking this on a Tuesday afternoon and there are still two free slots available for Saturday.)

So, I only did a 'normal' visit to the tower and took the elevator back down. Instead of abseiling.

But at least I got a go on the glass floor.

And that is, essentially, it.

I took the regular ferry back to Ryde, spent another night on the Isle of Wight and took the hovercraft back to Portsmouth the next day.

All there was left to do was to get to Southampton Airport and fly home.

Which became a bit of an odyssey.

I had been impressed by the rail service in southern England when I went from the airport to Portsmouth.

Trains were on time, service was good, information displays did work and were helpful.

I even e-mailed someone about it, as it was so different from the way public transport had been at home the same morning. Trains cancelled, trains delayed, information displays not working, buses not showing destinations. The usual.

But, as seemingly everyone in southern England expects, that was luring me into a false sense of security,

Everything worked well until I reached Portsmouth Harbour railway station.

Where the information displays worked well.

The said "Train cancelled" and "Ask someone for information".

It was around 10 am and I found someone working there, who looked at the train schedule on his smartphone. The next train towards Southampton was probably around 15:00. But that might only be because they hadn't cancelled that yet. It didn't mean that the train would be running. (And I might have gotten confused here, but as far as I recall, it wouldn't be going to Southampton anyway, but to Woking, which is a lot farther away from Southampton than Portsmouth is. And from Woking there might have been a train towards Southampton Airport at some point.)

It wasn't relevant in any case, as I would not have been able to catch my flight with that connection.

Luckily, Portsmouth Harbour railway station is right next to the bus station. And there is a direct bus to Southampton Central. Which was leaving within the next ten minutes.

The upside was that it is a 'local bus connection', so the ticket was only two pounds. The downside was that the bus takes a somewhat indirect route. It serves a lot of small places along the way. And that's usually not an issue, as everyone who wants to go to Southampton more directly takes the train.

So it took me about two hours to get to Southampton Central.

And while people at Portsmouth Harbour had at least tried to be helpful (even though they couldn't do much about it), the staff at Southampton Central had closed shop and (presumably) gone home.

The whole station was closed.

They had pasted a piece of paper to the door stating "No services operating from Southampton Central until further notice. No rail replacement buses. Tickets are also valid on local buses. Tickets for today can also be used tomorrow."

In other words: "Things are not working. We don't care. It's your problem."

I didn't see any buses that went from the train station to the airport.

I have checked later whether there was some way to get to the airport by bus. It turned out that there is a bus leaving at the Civic Center in Southampton - a 14-minute walk from the train station.

But there's no sign at the train station telling you this.

And no helpful personal to tell you either.

It probably wouldn't have helped much, as that's also a bit pedestrian. A route planner shows 44-minute traveling time when using the bus. As walking time to the station is given as 1:26, i.e. 86 minutes, the bus isn't even twice as fast as walking.

I managed to get a taxi, so I got to the airport in time. But the good impression I had with the railway system on my way to Portsmouth was gone.

(It then turned out that I wouldn't have needed to hurry, as my flight was an hour late. Which had seemed unlucky, as I only had 45 minutes transfer time in Amsterdam. But the flight home was also delayed> So after a sprint through Schiphol airport, I managed to make the connection.)

There was one last odd thing that I noticed before I boarded the plane.

The arrival doors.

Southampton airport is hardly a major traffic hub. It's not even in the top 20 of the UK airports. Inverness has more flights than Southampton. Even Norwich (where I didn't know that it has an airport) has more flights.

But Southampton has individual doors for "International arrivals", "Channel Islands & Ireland arrivals", "UK arrivals" and "Arrivals".

All of them lead into the same room, but that's ok. They can reconfigure the inside with queue barriers and direct all international arrivals to passport control and then through customs, Everyone from the Channel Islands and Ireland around passport control, but through customs. And everyone from the UK around both.

Kind of makes sense.

But the question is: Who they think should go through the door labelled "Arrivals".

Obviously everyone not from the UK, the Channel Island, Ireland or another country...

Who might that be?

Possibly Southampton is hoping for a British Space Programme. And that entrance is intended for interplanetary (or intergalactic?) travellers.

Or is that a special entrance for flights from the Isle of Man, which is not a Channel Island and technically not part of the UK?

Unlikely.

But who knows?

In any case, a mystery to ponder during the flight back home.

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