Rocks, Roads, Roundabouts and Romans

Day Twelve – Southampton to Bath
Today we left Southampton for Bath. Along the way we visited Stonehenge, one of the (manyish) White Horses before finishing with the Roman Baths in Bath. A pretty busy day even by our standards.

Getting out of Southampton was pretty easy as we'd been staying quite close to the motorway. We headed off on an A road, making a bee-line for Stonehenge just North of Salisbury. Having endured our usual dose of roundabouts we arrived about 10:15am. The weather was a bit dodgy – very grey, clouds down quite low and a pretty stiff breeze. If anything, it only added to the feel of the place. Unlike when I visited as a kid, you can now get a LOT closer to the stones which is a vast improvement. There were plenty of other people about but we'd beaten the majority of the crowds so you could see everything you wanted quite easily. It's hard not to be impressed by what is essentially just a pile of rocks. There is a real feeling of age about Stonehenge, and if you think about this size of each stone, how far they came and what tools they had available you start to appreciate the effort involved. Nobody knows exactly what the henge was built for although a solar observatory is the most popular and widely accepted theory. Thankfully there were no pot-smoking hippies about testing the theory ;-)

As we had to make our way via bit of an indirect route to Bath we decided to make the most of it and see one of the White Horses carved into the side of a hill. There are plenty of these about the South, the most famous being the Uffington one. Along the way we passed through some attractive villages, drove down some of the narrowest roads we'd see so far and came across plenty of craziness as well.

Since Stonehenge, pretty much anything in a field became a henge of some sort including Brickhenge, Hayhenge, Poohenge (don't ask) and Tankhenge. I'm quite accustomed to seeing roadsigns advising me the local wildlife is likely to wander onto the road. I'm NOT accustomed to it being armed, armoured and weighing a lot more than my car...

Another 30 minutes or so and we reached our next site of the day. The Westbury White Horse is a pretty cool piece of work. Originally carved in the 1600's to celebrate a local battle in 878, it has been maintained and occasionally updated ever since. We drove to the top of the hill and looked down / sideways at him and then headed back down. Nobody was really keen to stay up there as the wind was still blowing pretty hard.

After another hour or so in the car we reached the outskirts of Bath. Traffic-wise Bath is a bastard. I doubt it was ever intended to cope with motor traffic but it has never been improved either. We took one wrong turn that cost us about 30 minutes extra, nearly all spent sitting in traffic within minutes from the motel. At least we saw some lovely architecture.

Thankfully the motel staff confirmed we could walk from the motel into the centre of town for a meal and to visit the Roman Baths. "Lunch" was a bit on the late side thanks to sitting in the car but that just made it all the better. We had a great pub meal and I got my teeth in a steak for the first time since I had my wisdoms done. I made a noise like a girl when it arrived and then went dead silent until I'd cleared the plate. Washed down with a decent pint and I was starting to feel human again.

From the pub it was a short walk to the Roman Baths, sitting right next to Bath Cathedral. The whole place just reeks of history. The Baths themselves are very well set up and you can see the effort being invested in genuine conservation. All four of us got something quite special from the place. When Jenni found me at last I was sitting quietly next to the main outdoor bath, happier and more relaxed then I have been since we left Australia. I'm really starting to feel like I'm on holidays now. Anna, James and Jenni all did the audio tour which sounded like great fun. I went crazy with the camera. As usual.

On the way back we stopped to buy some "normal food" as tomorrow we head for Wales, our first cottage and self-sufficiency at last. That should also allow us to reign in the spending a bit too thank goodness ;-) Back in the room we played some cards, did our journals and blogs and had an early night.

Note: We're disappearing into lack-of-wi-fi-land tomorrow. Expect us back on the radar in a week or so unless we get lkucky with a Starbucks or something similar.

Lastly, where are we right now???

Cheers,
Millsy