Up, up, UP we went, up the Spinnaker Tower!

The tower has three decks to it.  The main viewing deck is the lowest of the three; the slightly smaller cafeteria sits in the middle, and then there is the smallest “open air” deck at the top.  Can you see them?

The views from the main viewing deck are spectacular!  To the north we could see over the Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard and across the harbour area.

In the middle of the Dockyard we could make out HMS Victory, her topmasts and rigging struck for maintenance.  The last time the top masts had been taken down was 1944, and Victory would have looked like this after the Battle of Trafalgar as she was towed to Gibraltar for repairs.

My great great great great grandfather was a marine who fought at Trafalgar on HMS Royal Sovereign.  I wonder if he saw the Victory in action?  Possibly he was a little bit preoccupied with action of his own, for the Royal Sovereign was the first into battle that day and was herself badly damaged.

To the south we could see the harbour mouth.  Can you see that tiny speck of a boat in the background, throwing up spray?  I think that is the Portsmouth-to-Isle-of-Wight hovercraft.

The viewing deck was airy and spacious, with wall-to-wall views.  The views were so inspiring that some of our party got quite carried away!

Right in the middle of the viewing deck is a glass floor, 60 mm thick.  Providing you take your shoes off you are perfectly at liberty to walk on it…if you dare!

We went upstairs to the second deck.  I can think of worse places to while the time away over a coffee, although as the sun streamed through the windows we fried alive!

On we went, up to the “open air” deck for a bit of wind and fresh air.  We found the “open air” deck walled in glass and roofed over by a thick steel netting, so it was not quite as “open air” as I was hoping.  On our way back down we decided to stop off at the glass floor again for a silly photo, best shown in inverted form (a bit like the people in it).

We went back down in the lift and took a last look up at the tower – oh!  Hello there!

Points on this part of the walk (copy and paste the co-ordinates into Google Earth):

• The Spinnaker Tower:  N 50° 47.735 W 001° 06.510

Walk #64 Statistics (of which this post forms the pre-walk part):

• Date of Walk: 11 January 214
• Walk #64 total distance covered: 3.49 miles
• Coast of Britain Walk Total Distance Covered: 530.23 miles
• CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO INTERACTIVE MAP!!!