england #19 – avebury and more white horses

Yes, at last it’s another chapter in the England Trip Chronicles That Have No End! Oh, well, I’ve only been back for three months. No rush!

And of course my titles are confusing in that they have completely departed from any relation to the days themselves. Quite some time ago. Probably obviously. {well, not now. I’ve fixed that and made them chronological numbers} This is still the Thursday of our second week- the Countryside Week. Bath was Wednesday, Uffington and the rest of the White Horses were Thursday. SO, it IS almost over. Waaaahhhh!!!! I think I’m dragging it out because I don’t want it to end. Again.

But anyway. After leaving the Uffington Horse and stopping again at the Handy Just-Outside-Swindon Roadside Services area to make another reservation at our magic hotel in Clevedon for that night, we headed south for Avebury.  But first I bought a British road atlas at the Roadside services place. Although you know what? I think I may have done that on a prior day. Perhaps when we first headed down to Clevedon. Oh, well, whatever, at some point I spent five pounds on a very useful road atlas. It had all sorts of handy stuff like the locations of the many White Horses marked on it, and it was good to have a backup to our BFF the GPS too. Even better, it was Baker B, aka Mr. Map Freak’s, favorite FAVORITE thing I brought back from England. I bought it thinking he’d like it, but not really intending to give it to him as a gift, because who gives a road atlas for a gift???? Well, anyone trying to find Baker B a present, that’s who! He went crazy for that atlas.

BUT, back to my point — the atlas had all the white horses in the area marked, so we got to stop off and see several more white horses as we toured Wiltshire. The first one was Hackpen Hill. It’s en route to Avebury, so we drove right by it. And parked on the side of the road and hiked through a field (unfenced, hopefully weren’t trespassing) for a good view. Apparently there’s a car park just up the road and you can walk all the way up to this horse too, but we were of course kind of hurrying. While also trying to see all we could. And we had a good view of it.

Then it was on to Avebury!

Which, like Stonehenge, is the site of an ancient monument constructed of stones laid out in mysterious mostly circular designs. And is also the site of a very pretty little village.

 

And sheep, which had apparently just been sheared. I’m not sure what the paint on them means-

And of course, the stones –

 

 

They were all over the place — it was a huge area. We didn’t see anywhere near all of it.

 

Kim, feeling the energy!

 

Kim swore she could feel the massive energy, and since she’s Ms. Psychic, I don’t doubt her one bit. I felt tons of energy myself, but I felt tons of energy the entire trip. Very unlike my usual energy-devoid state. I did think Avebury was much more accessible than Stonehenge, to my surprise. Stonehenge is the one you always hear about — I’m not entirely certain I’d even ever heard of Avebury before this trip. Stonehenge was weirdly touristy, not at all what I was expecting. It’s got two busy highways going right by it, and you can’t go up to the stones anymore. So although I was very glad to get to see Stonehenge, it wasn’t quite as impressive as I’d imagined it would be. Well, it was of course impressive, but in a kind of impersonal touristy way. Avebury was completely different. I loved Avebury.

Well, I know I said White HorseS, but the other two will –of course!!– have to wait till next installment.