The Gosport Ferry does not take long to cross the harbour, but is well worth the trouble, and really it is not much trouble at all.  It is cheap, offers a regular service, has an open-air upper deck, and skips across the harbour entrance from one side to the other at speed.

The views are wide ranging and varied.  To the south is the harbour entrance.

Look!  There’s the Round Tower, guarding it.

To the north is Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard.  As the ferry pulled away from Portsmouth we had some great views over to HMS Warrior, the pride of Queen Victoria’s fleet and the fastest and most powerful ship of her day.

We also had good views to HMS Illustrious.  What a pity there were no jets taking off!

The ferry pulled in to Gosport and everyone off-loaded.  This was the end of our walk today, but we had one more thing to do.  Because we have to “touch in” at the start of each walk wherever we “touched out” at the end of the last, we had to make it to dry land.  We shot off the ferry, nodding to the conductor who stood by the exit.  We hurried through the exit corridor, and into the outside plaza.  We then did a hasty about turn, shot back into the terminal, hurried down the entrance corridor, and back onto the ferry.  By this time, the conductor had moved from the ferry exit to the ferry entrance.  After having nodded to him 30 seconds before as we disembarked, we nodded to him as we re-boarded.  He started at us as if we were bonkers, and closed the doors behind us.

I got the distinct feeling that the journey back to Portsmouth was faster than the journey out.  I think he wanted us off his boat…

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

• Gosport Ferry Terminal (Portsmouth):  N 50° 47.820 W 001° 06.557
• Gosport Ferry Terminal (Gosport):  N 50° 47.685 W 001° 06.967
• The Round Tower:  N 50° 47.432 W 001° 06.532
• HMS Warrior:  N 50° 47.895 W 001° 06.555
• The Spinnaker Tower:  N 50° 47.735 W 001° 06.510

Walk #65 Statistics (of which this post forms the final part):

• Date of Walk: 2 February 2014
• Walk #65 total distance covered (not including ferry ride): 8.53 miles
• Coast of Britain Walk Total Distance Covered: 538.76 miles
• CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO INTERACTIVE MAP!!!