Stone Circles, England, Sat 04 Oct 08

Road Trip! Yay, gotta love a road trip. Early morning to go pick up our rental car, a cute little Renault Cleo hatch, perfect for zooming around the little english streets. Trying to get outta London was the trickiest part especially since we didn't have a map. I did my best with my awesome navigational skills and with a bit of sheer luck we found our way out to the M25 (the big ring road that circles London). From there it was easy.

We arrived at Stonehenge pretty quickly really and it was kinda weird because it's just sitting there right next to the road. Nick spotted it first and said 'Is that it?' and it took me a bit to realise the small collection of stones right next to the main highway we were driving on was Stonehenge. Strange.

We parked up and threw our jackets on because it was a bit chilly outside, paid, and headed through a tunnel under the road to the field. Trouble was the wind was a lot more fierce over the other side and it was downright freezing! My teeth were chattering.

You don't get very close to Stonehenge, there's a barrier you walk around and in parts the stones are quite far away. But nonetheless the stones are impressive, they're huge and the arrangement is weird. You just don't get the mystical feeling you might hope for at a stone circle. A few photos later and we were back at the car trying to warm up.

We had been told about another stone circle in Avebury which you could walk amongst so we decided to head up there. Unfortunately we didn't quite know where 'there' was. The lonely planet had a VERY rough estimate (i.e it was somewhere between Reading and Bath which were also on the england high level map) but our more detailed road map we'd borrowed off our flatmate didn't feature it. So we headed in the general direction to a place called Marlborough and hoped we'd see some signs.

No signs but an arrow to an info centre meant we stopped in at Marlborough for some directions. They had a carnival on in their main street which made it a fun stop in the end. We found Avebury, a tiny little town only about 10 mins on, and spotted the stones straight away, they were everywhere. They encircled the whole town.

I enjoyed wondering through the fields, touching the massive stones and saying hi to the sheep :) We were a little smarter this time and bundled up a bit more against the cold, problem was it was even colder here! I couldn't believe how freezing it was. I have no idea how I'm going to survive winter here. The wind was fierce too, a few times it almost knocked me over.

After leaving Avebury we drove down to Salisbury. The original plan was to have a walk around but by the time we got there the rain had set in and the car was just too nice and warm so we simply had a drive through the town and then headed onto Wilton (just out of Salisbury) where our accomodation was.

We had booked into a small pub called the Wheatsheaf for the night. It was a random find on the internet, but it turned out to be fantastic. It was our first time staying in a pub and I've gotta say I like it! You spend your night with a bottle of wine and a good meal and then you simply head up the steps to crash. What more could you ask for?! The pub was small and cosy, a short low roof and wonky floors, and our room was gorgous and cosy.

The pub was really quiet and in fact by about 9pm we were the only ones in there with the owners, but it made for a great chilled out night on a leather couch chatting to the owners and watching tv with them while enoying a bottle of red. Dinner at the pub was tasty, possibly the best pub meal I've had in England yet; steak & ale pie with chunky steak & vegies. So good on a cold night.

We're definitely going to stay in a pub again.