Chatham Dockyard – Scorchio!!

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I think today was one of the sunniest days this year. It was pushing 24 degrees by the time we got to Chatham – perfect! Chatham Dockyard has a proud history, starting with building the famous Victory there!

It was a pretty good journey there to including my first trip on the High Speed train out of St Pancras – check out the speed below that I recorded on the journey back – now that’s what I call fast! …and yes, that is mph!

So, back to the Dockyard experience. There was a submarine, a battleship, a lifeboat museum, a museum about the Dockyard itself, a police museum and a ropery – where we had a guided tour by the tour guide, who one minute was herself and the next moment she morphed into a Victorian worker – and she hammed it up beautifully – the result?, she  commanded the attention of both children and adults alike! Scary stuff!!
 

 
 
 
 
The only downside to the day was the eating arrangements. There weren’t that many places to eat there, so we headed for the only restaurant on-site – ‘Wheelwrights’. Talk about disorganised! No-one seemed to know what they were doing, there no trays near the food and the till was sited so far from the serving area, there was nowhere to place your food whilst you sorted out payment. The staff could have tried smiling a bit more and learn that simply pointing customers to the area to get drinks only works if there’s staff on the drink station to serve!!! Atrocious layout and crap customer service – luckily, the food wasn’t too bad! OK rant over!!!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
We finished off by having a look round the rather excellent lifeboat museum.

We left in good time, (helped by a descendant of Ben Hur driving the bus) giving us time to have drink and a snack at St Pancras International before jumping on the 4.30 for home.

It’s been a great day – made better by the gorgeous weather. More days like this please!