Wow! What a day

We left Chichester just after 9am and travelled to Havant and on to South Hayling. South Hayling was worth the visit for the views across the Solent to the Isle of Wight.

There is only one road in and out of South Hayling and it was slow going with heavy traffic getting out.

From there it was into Portsmouth which is a pleasant but trying to find a road out that wasn't a Motorway was challenging but we made it and found our way through Gosport to Lee on the Solent where we stopped for lunch and watched some boat racing.

The first real rain of our trip started here. We had been through the odd light splash but this looked likely to be prolonged. We bypassed Southampton and drove down though Hythe & Fawley into Lepe where we decided it would be prudent to put our wet coats on. This proved to be a good idea.

Passing through Beaulieu Pam heard a clatter from the back of the car and by the time I managed to find a safe place to stop I had quite a walk back to find a piece of leaf spring lying in the road. There was no space to do anything about it where we were so I limped on down the road hoping to fix it when we stopped to visit relatives in New Milton. It soon became obvious that this wasn't a wise decision as the rear axle was moving around quite a bit. I eventually found a safe(ish) spot to pull over and see what could be done.

The only jack I was carrying was a small scissor jack for wheel changing if needed. It wasn't really suitable for supporting the car for spring repairs but I managed to get the missing leaf back into position and held in place with two large cable ties. I decided that with traffic hurtling past within a foot or so of my backside and soaking me in the process that  it was time to move so we gently headed off to New Milton, hoping to do something more permanent there but it was not to be.

While we were there I suffered another problem when one arm of my spectacles dropped off. The screw had come out and no amount of searching could find it. Pam got out here sewing kit and did a super temporary repair.

After a pleasant couple of hours, we wish it could have been more, we limped off to our hotel in Bournemouth. We arrived tired and soaking wet but we soon felt better after freshening up and getting ourselves wrapped round a hot meal.

137 miles covered today.