We celebrated English Mothers Day at brother Geoff's house before starting our journey around 5:00pm. We were planning to leave Monday morning but were warned of the gridlock on the motorways around London so heading off early. We drove for about two hours and stayed in a nice hotel the town of Hook outside Basingstoke. This belonged to the Quality Inn chain of hotels and are well worth looking at if planning travel around England.
After breakfast we drove towards the Salisbury Plains for a look at Stonehenge. In my original plans I had not included this stop as I had never really been impressed by this group of rocks. As we approached it on the motorway we came around the corner and it standing alone in a fenced off paddock and my opinion did not change to the point that I was considering whether it was worth the admission price to go in however as we were there we would make the effort.
However as you approach these enormous stone slabs and learn about the effort made to bring them to this specific site and the reasons why my appreciation of the site improved immensely. I took advantage of one of the volunteer guides on the site who explained that the larger stones were quarried about 20 miles away while the smaller bluestone rocks have been traced to quarries in Wales more than 150 miles. The legend is that the wizard Merlin used music and magic to bring the stones to Salisbury.
The significance of the site is that it is a prime location for watching the skies to understand the movement of the sun and thereby determining the seasons. There are stones set to the southern and northern side of the henge from which the sun rising and setting could be viewed to tell when the equinox would occur.
When you see the large vertical stones up close you can see that small mounds have been carved on the top edge which match up with holes in the lintels placed on top which holds them in place. As we were walking back to the car park we noticed a number of odd looking vans and campers parked up a side plane. These belonged to a group of modern day Druids who had arrived to celebrate the Autumnal equinox that was occurring the next day. They had permission to enter the Stonehenge circle to carry out their ceremonies.
(from Jene - Scott was in his nerdy element here and talking to the guide. It was breezy but I let Scott have his moment lol)
As the photos show on face book the boys really enjoyed this site!
After Stonehenge we continued our journey down to Dorset and the little village of Lulworth on the Jurassic Coast. While we trusted our best friend, the Navwoman, it took us down the smallest of roads. First we came to villages that had a small lane each way but allowed cars to park on the street. Then we moved to smaller roads with privet on both sides that required both cars to edge to the side of the road to pass. Finally we came on to even smaller roads where you just hoped you didn't come across a bike coming the other way let alone a car. At one stage I was living in fear as Jene was flying along these roadways. I asked her to slow down and she came back at me that she was only doing 45! I had to remind her that it was 45 miles not kilometers (which is 75 k's)
Lulworth Cove is a lovely little fishing village right at the end of the road. The cove was formed when the creek running out of the hills broke through to the sea. The type of rocks in the area consist of softer sediments and the pounding of the sea broke them down to open up the valley to the sea. Over the years the softer rocks washed away until the water hit the solid chalk cliffs at the back of the cove. As the pictures show it is a full circle.
The reason I selected this location on this trip was to visit a geological site known as Durdle Door. This is an archway that has been formed in the coastal cliffs similar to the London Bridge on the Great Ocean Rd. For some reason the English have not acquired the concept of going around a hill. Once again I dragged Jene up this steep hill, almost as steep as the Great Wall of China. The photos show how much Jene appreciated it. When we reached the top Jene threw a tantrum and refused to come down the other side so missed the view.
The walk down the hill was also steep and as I came down the bluff there were people swimming at the beach. It was pretty cold and the swimmers did have on wet suits. At the bottom I reached the cliff outcrop and saw Durdle Door rising out of the sea. Looked good so proceeded to climb down to the beach for more photos. The steps that took me down were very narrow and challenging and these were used to bring families down to the water. The beach, as is typical, had no sand but was made up of thousands of small polished pebbles.
While down on the beach I received a text from Jen that she was making her way back down from the top back to the village so I started the climb to the apex and back down the other side. While Jen was not did not enjoy the walk up the hill what annoyed her more was that there were quite a lot of couples in their 60s and older who were doing the same climb - quite successfully. A couple of times I heard her mutter under her breath something about kicking their walking sticks out from under them.
When I arrived back in the village we rewarded ourselves with a Dorset ice cream. They are famous for their clotted cream (triple thickened) and we sampled some beautiful flavours before making a choice and heading back to the Barn. That night we went into town and ate at the local pub. Food was nice but what caught our attention was the number of people who brought their dogs into the restaurant while they ate. Jene ordered fish and chips and had a laugh when it arrived with peas!!
Our accommodation was called 'The Old Barn' and is a converted barn. Lovely room with beautiful view and a huge English breakfast. We then headed off to our next stop - Plymouth to visit the zoo.
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