For a change today we chose to search for a few geocaches in central Southampton. I've lived in Southampton all of my life and I realised today that we really don't make the most of what's on our doorstep. We parked overlooking the Itchen Bridge, where we saw quite a few swans and an oyster catcher as well as the usual seagulls etc. There was a bit of action on the river, where it looked like a group of school children were being taught to sail from an activity centre close by. Looking across the river towards Woolston and the old Vospers site there is a great deal of construction going on, it appears to be flats or should I say apartments.
Itchen Bridge
We found a quick cache in the car park then walked back to Ocean Village, a place we used to visit quite often fifteen to twenty years ago. Nowadays things are very different, gone are the shops and many restaurants, now it's mainly smart apartments with the odd restaurant and a couple of cinemas. One thing that remains however is the marina, with the many beautiful boats.
Posh boats!
We then spotted this posh number, a Sunseeker motor cruiser named Skyfall. Back at home I looked up Skyfall on Google and it's possible to charter it (for a great deal of money per week!) It did look pretty amazing and it was huge, it doesn't look it in the photo but look at the size of the vans and cars behind then it looks a bit bigger!
Skyfall
The tall building being constructed on the left is apparently the tallest residential building in Southampton. In between the two tallest buildings is a black blob, up a mast, this is a man - very high up!!!
Man up a mast - rather him than me! There is a second man watching him from the bottom of the mast, so that makes it all ok!!
We had to use our best stealth abilities to find the last two geocaches, one on railings in Ocean Village and one in a busy park near South Western House.
South Western House - surrounded by major roadworks.
This impressive building was once a hotel, the South Western Hotel and it is where most of the first class passengers stayed before leaving on the Titanic. It is now known as South Western House and is no longer a hotel but has been converted into luxury apartments. Over the years I have seen some of these apartments advertised for sale online and they are quite something else.
We walked back through Ocean Village, taking a different route to check out the marina from a different angle.
Ocean Village.
We found three caches, walked just over two miles and spent a good hour mooching about.
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