Today was rather exhausting and somewhat surreal.

There's a conference for cartographers going on elsewhere in the uni and ages back the Head asked if there was anyone who would lead some of the delegates on a tour of a nearby naval library. OK, so, I didn't have to show them round the actual library. Just get them all to the dockyard gate where we'd be met by the librarian who'd escort us in.

Yes please, I thought. Be quite interesting, I thought. Not very hard, I thought.

(The map librarian I should note was also leading a tour of yet more delegates to a nearby island, which is why he couldn't do it.)

Anyway, I confirmed all the details, printed them out, took them with me, and set off.
Slight panic when the four people who'd chosen this particular tour weren't where I'd been told - but not to worry, they were nearby in a lounge. We set off for the gate and were good and early - despite the slightly older chap who wasn't up to much walking - so I said I'd wait while they looked round the souvenir sellers of nearby naval history ships on display.

No problem there, they were all back in good time and we waited for the librarian. No sign of her. Five past the hour I'm getting a little edgy but we give her a few more minutes before I go and ask at a nearby ticket office if they can contact the library and let them know we've arrived. No, but they suggest we try the naval museum a short walk into the dockyard.

Off we go, keeping a look out for a harried librarian racing to meet us, but no such luck. At the museum we're directed 'round the corner' to the library but can't just go there as there are two guards keeping an eye on a gate. We check with the guards and they confirm we're on a list of visitors and they send us off to the library 'just round the corner'.

In there, we meet a pony-tailed chap who tells us that we're not where we're supposed to be. Despite it looking rather like a naval library and despite the guards thinking that's where we're supposed to be, there is apparently somewhere else that we've been invited to look round and we need to find Building #24. Just as we take our leave of the guy I suddenly realize somewhat out of the blue that he's the author of a reasonably obscure and completely unwork related, unlibrary related blog I read. We didn't have time to stop and talk so I thought it would nicely wind him up just to say: "You're Q, aren't you? I read your blog." as we scuttled out through the doors. He was suitably shocked and bemused!

Anyway, that's when it all started going wrong. Back to the two guards to get directions and they weren't at all sure. But they did have a map of the dockyard. Now maybe alarm bells should have started ringing when I looked at the age of the map, and maybe I should have got the cartographers to take a look for historical interest. But after some searching we found Building #24 and they gave me explicit instructions to walk down a particular road, turn left, turn right etc. and off we went.

10 minutes later we were where we'd been told and it did say #24 on the corner, but it looked like a rather grand residential block than a library. Still, I rang the doorbell and then noticed a sign saying 'Deputy Commander - Fleet'. Oh dear. It might only be the middle of the afternoon but who was going to be pleased at having an afternoon disturbed? Fortunately no one answered the door so I could run away very quickly and pretend I knew along it was the wrong place. Meanwhile, a couple of the (younger, fitter) cartographers had wandered down to the other end of the block and determined it was accommodation all along. No sign of a library.

In a bit of a quandary we noticed a very grand and newly fronted building opposite (and across a courtyard and car park) - can't say the Navy doesn't do things in a grand style - so we thought we'd try there. I left the group outside while I went in and found a very nice reception desk. Evidently all refurbished recently but no one in sight, just a blowup doll sitting in a corner. Then I noticed the small sign directing me to an office down the corridor if there was no one there. I set off with ever more of a sinking feeling but desperately hoping we were somewhere near our goal.

In the office - a large open plan thing with room for at least 8 - there was just one lady and she at least, and at last, knew the name of the librarian. She directed us 'just around the corner' (though inexplicably giving us explicit instructions to avoid an underpass which would have cut five minutes off the walk). We take off once more and get to where we think she meant but there's absolutely no sign of a library. Just another nice entrance - as we'd been told - which led into a stairwell and elevator lobby. No reception, no clues - till I start climbing the stairs and spot a floor directory. Still no sign of the library so there's no point climbing further.

Getting hotter and hotter and more and more bothered and somewhat stressed, back in the lobby I saw a phone. The cartographers were very patiently waiting outside but were happy for me to try and call in help. Obviously an internal phone and no phone numbers at all except an emergency one for security threats. I was desperate. Voices at the other end were not overly enchanted to find I wasn't a security threat just a lost librarian but they did at least suggest an operator number. Which I tried only to find there was no such number.

Back outside I regroup with the patient tourists and have to admit defeat. The elderly gentleman is ready to give up. I'm out of ideas. But at that moment two guys come running past and as luck would have it, one knows not only where the librarian is but shows us - now if only someone had been willing to do that earlier!

A mere 45 minutes late we arrive at the library where the head man who emerges to welcome us specially before handing us over to the librarian asks if we had trouble with security at the gate?! We all nearly throttled him. We never learned why we'd not been met at the gate.

Now at that point I'd decided that no visit on earth could be worth all the stress and embarrassment. But I was wrong.

The librarian had dug out of the archives a host of precious maps and atlas volumes and books for us to peruse. And then we had a long tour round the archives themselves (mercifully air conditioned to protect the stock). And finally a drink!

But some of the things we saw - and were allowed to touch and hold and 'flick through'. 400 year old books. Ortelius' atlas of which there are only two English translations - and we were holding one. Maps from Capt James Cooks' voyages. Ancient Chinese maps from before the printing press. A vast, beautifully bound Russian volume containing plans of every fortress in the country (which had then been swiped by Bonaparte and so had gained lots of French translations neatly next to the cyrillic and a stamp from the Biblioteque Nationale; and then been swiped by the Germans who'd added their own layer of annotations and library stamps; and then been swiped by the Brits... and so on). And perhaps my favorite of all: one of Mercator's original world atlases. Still with gorgeous colors and preservation.

In the end, no one was sorry that we'd persevered to find the place. Everyone was thrilled with what we'd seen and learned and although I could live without the adventure next time, I think the visitors will take back a good report to their conference!

We were even all given a gift of some surplus items they had. It's obscure enough and I thought I'd have no interest - about mine laying in World War II - a volume of text and a separate volume with all the charts - but I started reading the text and it was really quite fascinating and exciting! Just hope the map librarian actually wants it.