Wednesday, August 6, 2003 (Orcheston [near Stonehenge] –
Wiltshire/England)
A nice little diversion. Time to get the other
tires checked out. Onwards to parts unknown in a generally aimless direction.
Those student ID cards are still proving useful. There's something about this
particular henge. Oh how pretty the English countryside be.
Day 147. The past several days at Annie’s
house was a bit of a diversion but still very enjoyable nevertheless. Yesterday,
we took the kids to Hampton Court palace for the day. It was like stepping back
in time with actors dressed in period pieces walking around the grounds
entertaining the public. We were even treated to an audience with the queen and
had to look for clues to unravel a plot against the monarch’s life. Harry
found one of the clues and was awarded some silver coins for his
‘bravery’. There are plenty of palaces, stately homes and castles
dotted all around the British Isles and we intend to visit many of them during
our UK sojourn.
With the
‘thrill’ of blowing out one of the brick’s tires still fresh
in my mind, I decided to err on the side of caution and took the van to get the
remaining three tires replaced this morning. It was quite a challenge for the
engineers to get the back wheels off. They too had to let the air out of the
tires before they would squeeze out. After about an hour and a £10 tip
later, all tires were finally replaced and we were back in
business.
We left Annie’s house
shortly after five this afternoon and set off to parts unknown. Even though
we’ve been in the UK now for about a week, today marked the first real day
of our British Isles adventure. We’ve now left the safe haven of my
various brothers’ and sisters’ homes far behind and for the first
time have to fend for ourselves with just the brick to sustain us. We headed
West in the general direction of the South West of England with the intention of
reaching Wales in a couple of days. En route, we decided to change the plans -
now there’s a bloody surprise. Instead of travelling to Wales, we will now
be spending a few days in the Devon, Cornwall and Somerset area before returning
back Essex to see Ree-Ree. Although Ree-Ree has visited from Australia several
times in the past ten years or so, we’ve somehow managed to miss her just
barely each time around. This time I will make sure. It will be the fist time in
over fifteen years that I will have seen
her.
To a large extent, we are just
travelling around the country aimlessly. Today, however, we at least had a good
idea of what we wanted to do. We were going to pass Stonehenge this afternoon
and so we made this the first stop on our back yard journey. Much like many of
the places we will visit, Stonehenge is one of those places that I’ve
never visited even though it is just a couple of hours drive
away.
The student identification
cards that we picked up in Cairo came in handy at Stonehenge as it enabled us to
sign up for a year’s membership in ‘English Heritage’ at a
significant discount – more than paying for the cost of the cards, in
fact. With this membership, the entrance to Stonehenge was free of charge
– as will now be the case for many more places of interest that we will
stumble into as we navigate around the
country.
Stonehenge itself is an
amazing site and there is definitely an eerie, mystical, atmosphere about the
place. There were about fifty or more other visitors wandering around, including
one woman sat in the neighbouring field in a yoga position apparently
meditating. Although an ankle high rope enclosure prevents anybody from getting
too close to the stones anymore, we walked all around the collection of aligned
monoliths and listened enthusiastically to the recorded monologs on the handheld
audio listening devices that we were each handed as we entered the site.
Stonehenge still harbours many secrets and scientists and historians alike
struggle to explain its true
meaning.
After contemplating the
secrets of the world’s most famous henge for the afternoon, we rode off
again into the sunset in search of where to park for the night. We headed for a
nearby country village called Orcheston where a small campsite would offer us a
safe haven, not to mention an electricity hook-up, showers and a convenience
shop. We put the brick’s systems to the test and everything went pretty
well - mostly. The one annoyance that it looks like we will have to put up with
is the water furnace. Shortly after it was installed, we ran into a problem with
a safety relay tripping due to the water becoming too hot. I thought we had the
problem fixed but the valve had once again tripped and I had to remove the
entire front assembly before I could reset it. This is something I’ll have
to keep an eye on as we travel. The new microwave/grill, however, seemed to work
just fine and Sandy whipped up a nice chicken dish for the two of
us.
The British countryside is
awesomely picturesque and it was a real pleasure to navigate around the winding
country roads through the rolling hills. Perhaps we will try to avoid the major
motorways in favour of the pretty country lanes throughout our journey –
after all, there’s really no point in
rushing.
Stonehenge is apparently
just one of several historic monuments in this region of the South. Tomorrow, we
will examine more closely the books and brochures from our English Heritage
welcome pack to see what other gems we can uncover before moving on
again.
Posted: Wed - August 6, 2003 at 01:09 PM