October 23rd
Dave's meeting us this morning, and it's off to the big rocks. I wake up early, and spend some time catching up on my notes, and thinking about London. We don't have much time there at all. I do have a lot of notes about the trip so far, though. I'm pretty impressed. I don't think I've written this much on paper since my philosophy class at college back in 1982.
I really like the Big Breakfast Bar. This morning, we get to watch the manager take an inadvertant smoothie-shower. Seems the lid wasn't quite tight on the blender.
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Chalk Horse |
(23K) |
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Silbury Hill |
(81K) |
We meet Dave and we're off with Dave and Lindsay. We start heading toward Stonehenge, and on the way, we see a huge horse cut into the hillside. It was made by people removing the topsoil, so the layer of chalk beneath shows through. Impressive! We drive past Stonehenge, but the traffic heading back to it looks nightmarish, so rather than turn around, we decide to go up to Avebury and look at the big rocks there first. From there, we'll come back by a different route, and we can avoid some of the traffic. Along the way, we see a giant horse on a hillside (and take a few pictures) and Silbury Hill, which is one of Dave's favorites in the area. It's an impressively big hill to be man-made, and you can see how the Romans used it as a navigational aid when building their roads. A lot of the very straight roads around here converge on it.
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Avebury |
(71K) |
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Avebury |
(26K) |
At Avebury, it's not actually raining, and we even get a bit of sun. That's welcome. The ground is wet, though. As we're walking along the top of the ridge that surrouds the stone circle, I slip in the chalk-mud and cover my right hip and forearm in chalk. Guess I'll have a souvenir from here. Avebury is somewhat impressive, just due to me sheer size of it, but the rocks were only hauled from about five miles away (near Marlborough) and just stood up in a circle. They're not smoothed or shaped or anything. I try my hand at dowsing, and apparently point toward the nearest (or is it strongest?) ley-line in the area.
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Avebury |
(84K) |
We lunch at the Red Lion, Avebury, which is actually inside the stone circle. It's a good
lunch, and as we're leaving, the cook is outside emptying the trash or something and sees
me. "Fall down, then?" "A bit." "Bugger!" "Yep." It's a fairly good
statement of my mood at the moment, and the most memorable conversation I had on the
trip (which is probably helped by the briefness of the conversation, which makes it easy
to remember).
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Stonehenge (before the rain) |
(24K) |
We arrive at Stonehenge, and it's obvious it's a popular tourist attraction. We queue for a while, and get some audio-guides. These are at least better ones that let you fast-forward and rewind, but I'm pretty sure I like paper better. Dave disagrees, saying that he prefers to keep looking at things while listening to the commentary, but I don't mind switching from looking at something, to looking at the brochure, to looking through the viewfinder of the camera, etc. Different strokes, I guess.
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Stonehenge with rainbow (Okay, I enhanced the color) |
(35K) |
As we start to go around Stonehenge, it starts to rain. Brian and I tough it out a bit longer
than most, but eventually end up seeking shelter in the tunnel that leads back to the entrance
![[Footnote32]](images/foot.gif){kind=small}
. After fifteen or twenty minutes, the rain lets up, and as Brian and I are
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Stonehenge |
(56K) |
walking back out to the rocks, we notice that a double-rainbow has formed. We run to get far enough around that we can take a picture of it and the rocks before too many other people come out, but it's faded to a single rainbow by the time I make it far enough around. Drat!
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After taking quite a few pictures and walking around the rocks twice in rapidly changing light, we decide we should probably move along. The light this afternoon has made for interesting photography, but we don't want to spend the whole day here. I've also finally used up the Energizer Lithium Batteries I put into my digital camera sometime the first day in Dublin. I've taken hundreds of photos with them, and have to agree with the line on the packaging stating that they last five times longer in digital cameras. I definitely recommend them.
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Old Wardour Castle |
(58K) |
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The Grotto |
(72K) |
Our next destination is Old Wardour Castle, which also has a brief writeup on the
South Wilts Places to visit page. It's hard to find on the maps, and the only way we
found out about it was by reading the paper version of that web-page at the hotel. It's
a three-ring binder, but it's actually pretty handy. Anyway, eventually I find the
castle on the map, and start directing Dave to it. We only have a few wrong turnings,
and they're all in Tisdale, which is the town closest to the castle.
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Looking Out to the Lake |
(140K) |
When we finally do reach Old Wardour Castle, we find that we've arrived about a half hour before closing time. We get let in for the children's price, since there's so little time remaining. Michael Blair, who's the curator here, gives us a quick history of the place, which he spins to include information about the American connections it has. He's engaging and gives us a remarkably thorough history in just a few minutes. Then he's off to lock up
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Looking Out to the Landward |
(33K) |
various outbuildings ("If you need to use the toilets, I'm going to lock them up now.")
while we look around the castle. We spend a while climbing around it, and then walking around
the outside. Dave & Lindsay check out the grotto, which is more to their liking. I really
liked this castle, and strongly recommend it to you if you're going to be in the area. It's a bit
off the beaten track, but that's a good thing, since it means you're not sharing the place with
hordes of other tourists. It's also rare in being a hexagonal castle, and in spite of the
destruction, the shapes of things are pretty well preserved. As we're leaving, Mr. Blair
comments that I remind him of Fidel Castro.
Time to head back to Bournemouth. We get back to Dave's house, and drop off our stuff, and then it's time for a quick trip to the liquor store to get some beer before Robin (Dave's son, who's studying to be a chef) provides us with a tasty dinner. After that, we consume the beers, and then it's time to sleep.
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