London day 4: Keyhaven

Wednesday

We took a day trip on the train to visit the home of our HomeExchange hosts Jane and Ben, who keep their London apartment for their occasional use and exchanges with people like us. Ben's family has lived for at least three generations in a little town near Southampton, on the coast, where he sails a lot.

We took the 9am train from Waterloo, and wow what floods of people flow through there at rush hour. (It's a real reminder that London's population is more than 10 times San Francisco's.) Jane met us at Lymington, a town with a bit of Carmel touristism but a lot of its old charm, and drove us about five miles to their house at Keyhaven, where Ben keeps a very nice garden.

Their excellent plan was, after lunch at his sailing club, to walk out on a long long spit to Hurst Castle. (Yeah yeah, definitely not Hearst Castle.) Though the harbor at Keyhaven has many boats, the buildings and roads are small and pleasant; it feels traditional and self-confident without any sense of snobbishness. Still, there are rules:

 We were appropriately careful at the gate, beyond which is but a small boat launch ramp:

The spit is a natural and constantly-changing sandbar covered with weathered rocks of around three to five inches, mostly white to tan. It's maybe a mile long, with The Solent (an entrance to Portsmouth harbor) to the south, and the Isle of Wight less than five miles away, easily visible. This is the view back toward Keyhaven, with boats moored between the spit and the land:

And here's a view of the Isle of Wight and Fort Albert (which from here resembles Fort Point, but who knows really):

At the end of the spit we find Hurst Castle, built by Henry VIII when he guessed that England might be attacked by Catholics who were outraged by his split with the Church. 

The Castle was a defensive fortification during the Napoleonic Wars and both World Wars, and volunteers have worked to create and maintain small exhibits including mementos like Ben's grandfather's WWI letters and kit:

We climbed the ramparts and descended into the storage areas for the gunpowder and shells, with our personal audioguide (Ben) telling us about how he rambled around as a kid. (It had a lot of Alcatraz flavor, with all the rock and the sea and the guns.) Here's a 19th-century gun:

and here's a mockup of a WWII radioman who has just identified German planes headed for bombing runs over London:

The biggest cannons in the place were designed for warfare against ironclads. Here are Dan, Jane, and Ben around one such gun, with a slab of ironcladding, pierced, behind them:

We returned to London late in the day, and I'll end with an illustration of wonderful British humor from the train: