We have had an Epic last few days...and that's an understatement. We picked up the car on the 4th & I have adjusted well to driving on the left side of the road again. I have a little manual this time, so It's a bit more fun to drive. I've found driving in general to be OK, highways & so forth, but the country roads can be tiny, hardly big enough for 1 car & the speed limits on them are like 40-50mph sometimes, leaving me going a little slower pissing off locals who are used to them.
We have of course been driving places, of which I guess I should talk about! On Advice from Rian & lonely planet, whilst out west we decided to not only check out Stonehenge, but some of its equally impressive World Heritage Sites.
We stared off at West Kennet Long Barrow (wiki) and after a climb up the hill we got to have a bit of a look. Its really bizarre, I guess it it to say the same for all of the Neolithic sites of the area. Theres no admission to these ones and its really nice to get up close. We got to actually walk inside the chamber and up ontop of the mound.
Next Stop off was Silbury Hill. you can see Silbury Hill from the long Barrow & vice versa, it's just across the road. We were quite excited when we were up across the road as we saw someone climb it & thought it would be fun to do, but as we neared we saw signs requesting we didn't...so we didn't. It was a bit sad actually as it has so much history and by all accounts sounds really amazing when you read about it, the make up of the hill & of course its unknown purpose. But since the tunnels they built through it in the 60's caused damage & they have since filled it in, it really is just a big hill.. not all that impressive to look at honestly, but still worth the visit
After that we went back though Avebury to check out the stone circle. This was quite amazing. In most sections the stones are places perfectly around and it seems some of them were even shaped quite oddly too. The town itself is pricelessly charming, and once again as this was free, we stopped into the pub for a bite to take in the atmosphere a bit more. The whole town hasn't changed, I assume this is to do with it being protected, but it is amazingly kept. What was perhaps the strangest was the church. Dating back to the 12th century the church is an amazing feat of Architecture, and the graves accompanying are quite old, we waled past a few from 1900ish. But what really captivated me about the town was that these aren't all just old churches or places that are there for show. Its still fully functional, with graves onsite as later dated as 2007. Although we walked through the town thinking we were looking back in time, it is very much how they live.
We slept in the car that night & managed to et a good few hours sleep. To wake up for the Day. Stonehenge followed by Opeth at Royal Albert Hall. Massive!
We had fairly low hopes headed towards Stonehenge Lonely Planet had described it as a "underwhelming experience" so we weren't hoping for any kind of enlightenment I guess. We arrived early as advised to avoid the overly touristy atmosphere. We were actually surprised how close it was to the road. I mean, real close, They are petitioning & so forth to move the road now, but it is kinda funny that it was put there in the first place. Anyway we were going to pay to go through etc and get closer, but we wanted to see first exactly what we were paying for as we knew it had been roped off. The ropes were alot further away from the stones than we had anticipated and the path was literally 2 or so metres from the fence next to the road in some areas, so we decided to not pay the 7 pounds each for a few more steps.
We had a great view from the road, and in all fairness it is something you look at and scratch your head, I mean it is amazing, and its something that you have to do, you know, but I think we made the right decision in not paying to go inside. In the first 10minutes of us being there, buketloads of people came in, coaches & tour busses and the area that you pay to go in was packed out. I think we probably had a better experience on the other side of the fence.
After this we head back to our hotel in Heathrow & drive into Opeth. I Shall leave this amazing story here and leave Benny to tell the rest.
Much love
xxx
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