Day 46 - Salisbury to Chortledon (Stonhenge YHA)

Sat down in the grounds of the magnificent Salisbury Cathedral on a glorious summers afternoon, not lots of people and very very quiet - enjoyable.

Peter very much enjoys Cathedrals and is taking the tour. Like much of what I've seen on this journey, here is a fantastic photographic subject and again I could spend perhaps a whole day here with my proper camera and capture the best of what this wonderful building has to display through the day and night. But alas that will have to wait for another time.

Today we had a leisurely start to the day as once again we were catching a train to relocate to Salisbury before continuing on with our ride. While train is not at all our preferred means of getting from A to B when we have searched for accommodation and not been able to find anything suitable (as we have experienced here in the UK) we accept the level of stress involved and go on a train.

After our look around the Cathedral we took the quiet back roads through to Stonehenge - along the way passing "Chocolate Box" Cottages, Houses and Manors dotted along the valley through which the River Avon flows. At one house we saw a "Thatcher" working high up on the roof replacing the capping thatch that runs along the legth of the roof. He was certainly a craftsman (who else would be about the equivalent to four stories high on a very steep pitched roof at the top of a ladder, tied to another ladder that was lying against the roof of the house - no safety harness or the like could be seen)! It appeared each of the reeds that go in to making up the thatch is placed individually and cut to length up there! He told us for this sized farmhouse (see pic) to do the whole roof rather than a 10 year re-cap job that he was working on would take a team of four men three months to complete - that is equal to paying a very skilled craftsman for a year not to mention the cost of the thatching material - the good thing is once you've bough sufficient ladders you don't have to buy them again for the next job and see the note above about not needing to concern yourself with health and safety stuff like harnesses and fall protection as being a craftsman thatcher you're not going to slip or fall so there is no need for such stuff!

I did admire his skill, his obvious attention to detail and the beautful finished roof.

A bit further on we crossed the Avon once again (one of the very best fishing rivers in the UK according to one local chap we spoke to) and there on our right was an idylic country pub with a marquee and tables and chaors set out on the grass adjacent to the river so we deicded to pull in for a drink.

After our drink stop it was a few more km's until we were beside the very busy main road running close by Stonehenge, we stayed on the cycle path for about a km then crossed over and road up a grass track to the back entrance to the World Heritage Site. While there were only us on the grass track once we got to the top we saw nothing but a steady stream of people all walking up on the other side of the fence on the ropped off walkway that kept people about 75 metres away from the stones. There was a constant stream of people all coming up from the visitors centre and car/bus parking area somewhere down below us and from the otherside. We realised we were not going to achieve anything by continuing on down, paying some money to then walk back up on the other side of the farm fence we were standing behind. So we took some more pics (as close as the paying customers almost, bar the farm fence) and then headed back to cross the main road and backtrack for about 2 km's before heading in to Amesbury.

The Yout Hostel we are stopping at this evening like many is set out in the countryside away from shops and the like and with this in mind we decided to have our meal in a pub in Amesbury, The pub was 16th centuary and a fabulous building.

Because we back tracked rather than carrying on it meant we were now off-course and over dinner we modified our route to take into account that we had ventured into Amesbury. Once that was locked down off we went and passed and interesting very well secured Governement property kind of like barracks but not flying any flags or the like - it had a new razor wire and electric fence surrounding it and numerous security camers amd a notice "Property is governed by the Official Secrets Act" MOD Boscum Down! and then we found our new route wanted to take us on the inside perimeter fence on the road inside! Well we weren't going there so we looked again and say by continuing on the track we were on we should be able to hook up with another road coming back down to the other end of the Official Scerets raod, so off we went.

We past a couple of very dubious looking caravans and squatters camps on the side of the track and I made sure to let them know we were approaching as I didn't want and dogs being caught off guard with three bikers. My strategy worked and the young fellow grabbed hold of one of the two dogs that appeared - this necessitated having to place the strong smelling cigarette he was smoking in hsi mouth! he was happy enough when I said "Gidday, nice day" to him. Fortunately at the second camp along the trail the dog bowls were there but no on or dogs were home.

This track brought us out on to a dual carriagway main road with lots of traffic. There was no way we were going to try to cross the road, lift our bikes over the armco centre barrier to carry on in the direction we wanted to go. So we had a committee meeting and decided to walk our bikes along the grass verge of the road for the next 4-500 metres to the connecting road we wanted to head down - the grass verge was plenty wide enough to have us off the road and away from the traffic - however it did nothing to stop or dampen the constant road noise.

We then followed the side road for a bit from which we veered off and onto a grass little used single track for a couple of km's that had the odd blackberry growing right out and over our path of travel. The last 300 metres of today's 30 km ride was on a sealed road down to the YHA where we were met by the most lovely of Managers who changed our room from the top floor to the 'Disabled Person's" room with our own bathroom and plenty of space for our bikes as well.

So not a long or hard day at all - a nice easy day (other than the train) that gave us plenty of time to once again take in as much as we could of the wonderful scenery and history we were riding by.