And so I left the North, lugging a Thufir along with me. We
headed down into what I’m told is the South, picking up GrlumpTheElder along the way, and stopping overnight in Derby with
Strawberries and Cream Snowleopard. They made us a delicious authentic Italian dinner, and showed us the
sights of Derby. Then we went to catch the bus down to London… except it turns out it was a train, we missed it by a minute, and it cost me more than 100gbp to replace it with a train ticket :sigh:
Between that debacle, dragging all my ridiculous crap through half a dozen stations, and general travelling grumpiness I was
not the best company for that trip. I cheered up somewhat, though, when Grlump pointed out the
Long Man when we passed it. I appreciate that all the more since I wasn’t able, in the end, to see the Uffington Horse, so it was very cool to see something else of that ilk.
We got to Hastings eventually, and
Thufir and I settled into our B&B room. A lot of the next week was spent wandering around
Hastings, seeing what there was to see and enjoying the local cuisine (fish’n’chips). It was a very
picturesque town, with a lot of
history and some really
interesting buildings around. Highlights of the town included a
burnt-down jetty,
net huts, the
distinctive pebble beach, and a truly
fabulous shop window.
We went to two of the museums in Hastings.
Grlump,
Thufir and I went to the Fishing Museum, an
interesting little place dominated by a
fishing boat in the middle of the room.
Thufir and I went to the
Shipwreck Museum on our own. That’s where I learned that
I’m not a people, and how to tie a real
knot. It was an
interesting place, with some
surprising stuff.
One particularly notable outing was when
Grlump and
FiftyEyedFred took
Thufir and I out to the town Battle to see their school,
Battle Abbey, on the site of the
Battle of Hastings. We started by having a look at the
school itself, specifically the world’s biggest single-canvas painting.
Grlump and Fred were rather
smug about having gone to school in a thousand-year-old abbey, but frankly aside from the smugness I’m not convinced they appreciated it enough.
I will grant, however, that they knew their stuff. The
recorded tour thing was all well and good, but it couldn’t hold a candle to
Fred striding off down a hillside to demonstrate exactly
how far across Harold’s army reached. And I didn’t know much about the battle at all (there’s a tapestry of it and
Harold got an arrow in the eye was about the extent of my knowledge), so it was interesting to learn about it looking at the
exact place it happened. The story of the
Abbey itself was quite interesting too, although to be honest I was
more interested in the
architecture than the
history. Nonetheless, the
grounds were utterly gorgeous, and I found the more
domestic sorts of aspect of the history particularly fascinating – such as the
vaguely sinister ice house. In conclusion, I’m extremely jealous of Grlump and Fred and their
guard tower.
Overlooking the pebbly beach of Hastings, up on a bright green hill, are the
ruins of a castle. One afternoon, after lunch at Grlump’s house (I’ve been in Lumpy’s room! :biggrin:), we three decided to go up to see that castle, and the Smuggler’s Adventure that shared the hill. We debated briefly over whether we’d go to the castle first or the Smuggler’s Adventure. As the castle was what I was most interested in I was for going there first, but the other two disagreed, and Grlump reassured me that we’d have plenty of time to see it before they locked it up. So
Thufir,
Grlump and I went into the Smuggler’s Adventure, which was a sort of
museum about the
smuggling that went on in the area, built into the sandstone caves in which they hid the goods. It was pretty interesting, but I wished they’d left a bit more of the caves themselves intact, so you could see what they were originally like before all the figures and information and… just
plain weird stuff was put in.
We emerged from the caves, more or less intact (
unlike some people) and headed over to explore the castle…
…which was closed. Turns out
Grlump got closing time off by half an hour. That was disappointing, particularly as that was our last chance to see it, but never mind. I lived, and
looked at it from
outside instead.
Also in Hastings was a pretty neat
mini-golf course, which I
insisted on playing. All three courses of it. The holes were a bit basic for my tastes for the most part, but I
enjoyed it anyway; I
hope the
other guys did too. And by the way:
Thufir is okay at mini golf, but INCREDIBLE at getting the free game at the end. He managed it twice. Also the thing told Grlump he “should’ve gone to Specsavers” :biggrin:
Other activities in Hastings included
drinking in the
pub, and
drinking on the beach, and
playing games in the pub (while drinking), and
doing some beachcombing. Among
other things,
GrlumpTheElder found a really interesting, spiky shell
for me – with the two halves still attached. I’ve still got it :3 I think it’s extremely pretty, and I desperately want him to come to Australia so I can go beachcombing here
with him.
Oh! Also, one night, I saw a
badger! :smallbiggrin: I heard a tick-tick-ticking of nails on the concrete and saw something furry go into an alleyway. I thought it was a cat, so I went over to call it, but looking in the shadows I couldn’t actually tell whether it was a cat or a dog. It just sat there looking at me while I whistled and trilled at it, and then it turned its head slightly and I could see the silhouette of a definitely non-feline nor canine muzzle. I tried to get a photo of it but, as you can see above, my camera decided to be uncooperative. The guys made fun of me for being so excited, but… BADGER! :biggrin: (and Thufir hadn’t seen one before either, so ner :smalltongue:)
The goodbyes in Hastings were particularly sad. ‘tis a shamefully poorly kept secret that
Grlump is my favourite, my Little Brother in the Playground, and I’m genuinely sad that I’m not going to see him again for years, most likely. I really miss him, and I want to bring him here to show him all my weird collections of stuff I think he might be interested in – or willing to feign it politely. And I can’t properly express how much
fun I had with
FiftyEyedFred on our impromptu wine-on-the-beach session. I’m glad we got to spend that much time hanging out, and wish we could have some more. I’m gonna miss you house-heads-of-a-private-school-in-a-thousand-year-old-abbey
boys, more’n I reckon you know :frown:
The next morning, Thufir and I were
on our way to Wiltsire.
The train got us into Pewsey, tired,
cranky, sniping at each other and lugging around ridiculously huge bags... and then the people at the Bed and Breakfast weren't in :smallsigh: We ended up having a morning drink at the pub down the road until they turned up, earlier than expected.
The B&B itself was a really nice little place. Had a comfortable loungeroom with a nice big TV, a little bitty garden with an ancient dog and an elderly black cat, and cosy rooms with HUGE beds. The loungeroom was full of books about crop circles and goddess landscapes and astrology and the like - the lady of the house's I believe. There were also some sci-fi and Pratchett - the man of the house's, as I understand it. We didn't see the latter very often; the wife appeared to be the one mostly in charge of the B&B. Usually their guests only stayed one night, maybe two, so she didn't really seem to know what to do with us staying a whole week. She ended up allowing us to use the washing machine and some kitchen stuff, which was fine. We didn't intend to get any of our meals there, wanting to just buy really cheap stuff, but we shouldn't have bothered since we ended up eating out every night anyway (the lack of cooking facilities didn't help that). In the end we ate one tasty dinner and one tasty breakfast at the B&B, and got one of those for free; on our last night, there was a couple there that wanted a room each, so Thufir and I got moved to the other room. Which was even better than the original, so it wasn't exactly a downgrade requiring them to make it up to us...
Anyway, we spent a day working out what we were going to do for the rest of our time there. The first thing we decided to do was walk all the way to Avebury, about 12km to the north-north-west as the crow flies. Of course, neither Thufir nor I are crows, and our route was significantly further than that - about 20km according to Google Earth. It ended up taking us 6-7 hours, and we did
not take enough water. I intended to buy a third bottle on our way out of town, but didn't :smallsigh: It was a shame, because it made the walk significantly less
enjoyable than it would have been. There was a magnificent crop of blackberries to help make up for it, though, so it could have been worse (and
Pewsey blackberries are
delicious, by the way).
The walk started with a wander through the
back-lanes of Pewsey, as per the directions of our hosts at the B&B and a couple of people we met along the way. We bought an atlas of Wiltshire which was
extremely helpful - helluva lot better than Google Maps' terrible directions. We crossed the
canal, traversed some rather muddy patches, and wandered through the farmland. We supposedly passed a
historical feature of some sort very early on, but we didn't end up going up to have a look at it and weren't sure what we were looking at anyway (this was a theme of this trip).
There was an
odd little village full of
quaintness. Just outside of this place we got a bit
lost, and discovered a really weird house. Someone
inside kept watching us as we circled around it and recovered our path. Sometime later we caught another
sight of it from far up above. Still have no idea what was going on with it, and considering all the stories of crop-circles and UFOs around the place it was kinda creepy. But no doubt it was just some rich person's country getaway.
At the other end of the luxury dwelling spectrum we came across some gorgeous
thatch-roofed cottages, and then a loooong, sloped - but
very pretty - lane. Thank goodness for the blackberries that were growing along it - they were delicious P: Also there was a
giraffe for some reason.
This lane got us into the country proper, and we
stopped for
lunch in a
sheep field. Our picnic spot had a pretty nice,
very green view. There were also some
mounds in the area that made me think there might have been something going on there archaeologically, but our maps didn't say anything, so maybe it was just from farm-related diggings.
After lunch our
route took us across the
chalk hills with
spectacular views. We made our way to a
hill that was an
ancient fortification. There
Thufir had a
nap while
I went exploring. While we were there, a
helicopter was going up and down the valley doing terribly impressive maneuvers. Bunch of show-offs.
We went down that hill (pausing to say hello to some
cows) and then went up the next one, looking everywhere for Adam's Grave that was meant to be around there somewhere. We had no idea what Adam's Grave was, nor what it might look like, and we were pretty disappointed when we got to the
top of the
hill without seeing any sign of it. There we
sat around a bit, looked all over this hill and started thinking... This was a very
odd shaped hill. With a very
lumpy top. And a
big rock at one end of the biggest lump, the first such rock we'd seen on the whole walk...
Turns out we couldn't see Adam's Grave for the
hill :smallbiggrin:
Our hostess had mentioned there being a cropcircle around somewhere. I'm not sure whether it was the one she was talking about, but we saw a pretty impressive
specimen from Adam's Grave - the first and only crop circle I've ever seen. There was also apparently a white horse around the corner, but it wasn't very old, and we'd already misjudged distance pretty badly with
Adam's Grave, and we were getting pretty tired and thirsty, so we decided against going looking for it. Instead we headed off down our path some more.
There was a small fortification outside a
farm at the base of Adam's Grave, but it's
hard to see. There were also
supposedly some tumuli, but we couldn't see them. In any case, the countryside was pretty
gorgeous, and the
quaintness was
almost palpable.
We never quite made it to
Salisbury Hill, although we did espy it from a distance. We
found the
place where a very old stone and wooden
circle once
stood, though. Just before we went walking along the
Stone Avenue we followed a sign into a field pointing to a stone circle about 500m along. We didn't so much find a circle as a bunch of
overgrown rocks, but there was nothing else in sight that it could've been.
In any case, we went back and followed the
Stone Avenue to Avebury. The avenue was really
gorgeous, and must have been marvelous to
behold when it was first built. There were all these
impossibly ancient monoliths,
towering implacably in
bizarre shapes and forms. It was kind of strange the way the road was almost, but not quite, parallel to the avenue, so that eventually it cut through it. These were the first standing stones I'd ever seen, and as I'm sure you can tell they really left an impression.
The Stone Avenue leads
straight to Avebury, and
that was impressive. It's worth looking up on Google Earth if you get the chance. The Avebury circle is a really massive
ditch and mound circle, at least a couple hundred metres across, and
dotted with rows and circles of huge
standing stones. All different
shapes and
sizes, and some of them
carved here and there. There was
one stone in particular that was clearly shaped, with geometric blocks carved out of it, but I have no idea what it was meant to look like - it's like the stonemason was interrupted part-way through. The town of
Avebury itself was sort of awkwardly perched across the western side of the huge circle like a cat flopped over the side of the bath. I looked into its history a bit, and from what I gather the town used to be a lot bigger until it was bought - the whole town - for its historical value, and mostly demolished to make way for archaeology. Except the
pub, of course. It was a surreal place, and somewhere I'd like to visit and
contemplate again someday.
Just the trip home again was a journey in itself. It was nearly impossible to find even remotely reliable bus times online, but I thought I found something that worked. Then when we got to the bus stop in Avebury and compared it with the timetable there it was way off. We ended up having to get a bus all the way to Swindon, where we discovered that we'd missed the last bus back to Pewsey by about 10 minutes. We had a look at the trains, but we'd have to get it to Reading and hope there was another train from there to Pewsey. Not willing to take that risk, we ended up getting a 50gbp taxi all the way back home :smallsigh:
Bonus: when we told the people at the B&B about it, they said if we'd called them they would've come get us from Avebury for half that :sigh: At least we saw a
White Horse on the way.
Speaking of White Horses, Thufir and I originally intended to go see the Uffington Horse on the Saturday - literally the only day it was possible to get there by public transport. In the end, though, we decided that it was going to be too long a journey for too short an expedition. The experience of the Avebury walk didn't help, either - the trip was slightly complicated involving a series of buses and/or trains, and after that debacle we didn't know how reliable the trip to Uffington would be. That was a very sad decision to make, as the Uffington Horse was one of the main things I really wanted to see in the UK.
Instead, Thufir and I went for a walk around
Pewsey itself. We went
wandering out of town - passing a bizarre
Muppet Show installation that appeared overnight for some reason. Trusty
guidebook in hand, we set off to see all the sights - starting, unexpectedly, with yet another
White Horse. I don't think it's particularly big as far as White Horses go, but once we clambered up the surprisingly steep hill it certainly seemed
impressive enough. We stopped there for lunch and admired the
view. While we were there a couple from... shoot, where was it? Holland, maybe? Belgium, I think, turned up. I asked them if they knew anything about the OTHER White Horse you could supposedly see from there, and they let me use their binoculars to see if I could make it out (I couldn't).
I managed to convince
Thufir that we had enough time for a bit of a walk to another long barrow nearby, and I think it was pretty nice. There was a lot of countrysidey
stuff, and the fields below made an intriguing multicoloured
patchwork. Dotted around on the map there were a bunch of "ancient agriculture features" (or something like that). With nothing else to indicate what was going on, I can only assume they were things like the
stepped hillsides and the strange
ripples in the earth.
I thought that was a funny thing about that area, and about the UK in general. If, in Australia, we had man-made landscape features that are thousands of years old, you can bet we'd have them surrounded by informative plaques, pointed out in detail on maps, described in pamphlets readily available at most tourist-oriented businesses nearby, maybe some tour guides... The UK, you have an ambiguous little symbol in a map book. I feel like history is taken for granted over there... I suppose they do have plenty to spare.
We found that long barrow in the end. As expected, it looked like a little hill on the hill. Here, again,
Thufir had a nap while I went
exploring. The barrow had a dip in one end. I gather, from later information down near Stonehenge, that these dips (I saw a similar one on Adam's Grave) are from archaeological digs performed in the 1800s and not, as I was musing at the time, the location of the original entrances to the tombs.
From thence we made out way back down into the
valley. Unfortunately neither of us thought to take a picture of our descent as we were making it, but I assure you it was extremely
steep and quite nerve-wracking on occasion while we were going down.
On
our way back we passed some
weird little
woods and looked some more at the
picturesque countryside. We'd been looking for fancy feathers with which to decorate Thufir's stylish hat, and I managed to sneak two of them on it without him
noticing. What japes!
After getting a bit lost, even within sight of the town, we managed to make it home, just in time for Doctor Who!
Incidentally, when we got back there we discovered that the B&B had two new guests: the Belgian couple we'd met at the White Horse! :smallbiggrin:
The Sunday was Bath day. And no, I don't mean I had a shower (although I may have done that too). We were going to Bath, which was the place my Mum specifically singled out as a place I should see while I was in Britain. Seeing as she was basically funding the entire expedition, I thought I probably ought to go have a look.
The first exciting thing about Bath was on the way there. The train passed
yet another White Horse. Although we only saw it from far away, it looked
positively humongous. But we weren't devoured by the gigantic equine, and we made it to Bath where we met up with
lesser_minion, who'd come out for the day trip.
We spent the first while looking for somewhere that was nice and cheap, and also open, for lunch. I believe we eventually settled on bagels, which were quite tasty. But
while we were wandering around lost and aimless, we also took in some of the sights of Bath: we saw the
pretty little park (that you have to pay to get into), the
canal, a
mysterious castle far off in the distance, and various other
quaint and
impressive sights (most of which were probably older than Australia). And also a
squirrel.
We went to the
cathedral there, which even from the outside was a strange and
formidable piece of art. It is decorated with gorgeous and sometimes really weird carvings of something like a
Tree of Life, and
creepy-looking angels climbing up and down ladders.
Inside it continued this mix of strange and spectacular: the
walls and
floor were
lined with... graves? Tombstones? Memorial plaques? I'm not sure exactly what they were, but they were everywhere - it was literally impossible to avoid
walking on them. Some of them I
know are older even than western
knowledge of Australia, because
they say so.
The
ceiling had this lovely scalloped design, almost fungal in appearance, and of course the
stained glass was gorgeous - there was one set that depicted the colonies, including
Australia and New Zealand. For some reason India got to be represented by
St George and the Dragon, which doesn't seem very fair. And then there were some decorations that were just plain
creepy.
From the cathedral
we headed to the
baths of Bath themselves. It was very cool, so
impossibly old and
beautiful and laden with historical significance. And the pools themselves looked so
inviting, I desperately wanted to go for a dip: the
last dunking pool was particularly picturesque with its treasure-trove of coins, but the
disturbingly bubbly, boiling secret
inner sanctum pool was also intriguing.
There were lots of interesting
bits and
pieces in the
museum the baths have been turned into - I think my favourite was the
signet stones that had been washed out of people's rings. They were tiny but
beautiful, with intricate little pictures cut into them. All in all,
I'm glad my mum urged me to go see it, and I'd recommend the Baths to anyone with any interest in
history.
Sadly lesser_minion, Thufir and I were kicked out of the baths just before we'd really finished looking. But never mind: Minion
took us out to dinner at a pretty great place that did
amazing hot chocolates (a favour I hope to repay some day), and we wandered through the
darkened streets of Bath to catch our trains back home.
But that wasn't the last I saw of lesser_minion, no siree! That was the next day, when we all met up again to go for a walk to that stone circle to end all stone circles: Stonehenge.
The Stonehenge was an interesting one for me. I wasn't ever really particularly interested in it - I think because I'd been given the impression that there was this great big fence all the way around it so you could only see it from the road, quite a distance away. Visiting it was pretty much just an aside: "Well, as long as we're in the area, I
suppose we ought to...". And I'm glad we did, because it really was the very definition of impressive.
Thufir and I met lesser_minion in Amesbury, which was... a town. Looked very town-like. We
set off into the countryside; a
relaxing,
pleasant sort of region dotted with
haybales and burial mounds. After a
shortcut or two, we spotted it far off in the distance across the plain: the
Stonehenge itself.
We had to pay to get in (you have to pay to get
everywhere; if I go back there again I may join that historical society or whatever it was that let you get into places cheaper), but once you were in it was much better than I was lead to believe. You can't walk right in amongst the
stones, obviously, but the path around it gets very close at places, and it's just bound by a
low single-rope fence (if you can call it that).
Like I said,
Stonehenge is like
impressiveness made manifest. It's
humongous, every piece
fitting perfectly into its couple, and its simple, primitive appearance belies the
technological precision that you can see must've gone into building it when you look at it carefully - and it's a more complicated construction than you think at a glance, or from pop-culture. It's just so, so
very... incredibly... old, and it looks it. It looks like it's been there forever, and will probably be there
forever still. I'm very glad I had the
chance to see it.
I digression, for a moment: you might've noticed that in a lot of these pictures, notably at
Stonehenge, Bath and Battle Abbey, my companions and I have our hands apparently glued to our heads. This is because these places have audio tour guide things. I have mixed feelings about these things. On the one hand, there's some really interesting information, more than you could fit on boards, and you can listen to it while you're walking around. On the other, they fill up your entire time there so there's no time to just look at things or talk to the people you're with, and you can't skim over the information to find a point here and there you find particularly interesting. All in all I can see why they're popular, but personally I prefer the information board system, and I'd kinda like to see those places again without them.
We took a different route home, during the course of which we discovered another distinctive feature of Stonehenge:
you can't escape it. You can see it from everywhere, just about. And it seems to get
bigger the further away you get. We walked along a "
circus"
thing, this long self-enclosed road-like construction - the function of which is apparently unknown - and across fields. There were
burial mounds (or "
tumuli")
frickin' everywhere. On one of them I found this awesome, huge bright orange
slug. It did this weird wiggly dance when I picked it up (I'll try to upload the video I took of it at some point). There were also some
satisfactorily creepy little
woods.
We went back to the
town, and said some sad
goodbyes. It was a
great day out, and I'm gonna miss lesser_minion a lot - he really needs to get down here so I can pay him back for that dinner.
Then there was one last
dinner, and one last bit of
wandering around Pewsey, and
Thufir and I were on our way to our last stop: London.
The Succubus very kindly housed me, Thufir AND, in the end, Archonic Energy. Sadly the next day he had work, so it was just we three who went off into the city. We picked up a
couple of extras along the way, though. This was the first time I'd ever met
Onasuma or
Nameless. I was pretty excited, and they were everything I imagined and more! Nameless is as gorgeous as advertised, but surprisingly a bit on the shy side. I'd have liked to get to know him in person better, and I still have to send him his present. Onasuma... I had pretty much no preconceptions about him, but I'm very glad he came. I think we clicked basically straight away (suppose he may disagree...), and I think I can reasonably safely call him a
good friend, now.
Thufir, Archonic Energy, Nameless, Onasuma and I spent the day at the
British Museum. A full day wasn't enough, especially not with a
break for
lunch in the middle (Archon's treat! He's a
big ol' softy, really, but don't tell anyone).
There was, as you might expect, a
whole lot of really neat stuff in the museum. There's not really much point going over it all; it's a museum, go see it.
Things were learnt,
shenanigans were had, and then we said
goodbye to
Onasuma (just for the night) and
Nameless (FOREVERS D:), and Thufir,
Archie and I had dinner with The Succubus.
The next day we met up with Onasuma again and Archie plied us all with copious amounts of doughnuts, which we ate in the park. Then we played a whole game (!) of OotS before grabbing some
lunch and heading off to the airport.
For the several weeks up to then, incidentally,
my cousin was in the UK. I kept trying to organise to catch up with him somewhere, but he was always in the right place at the wrong time - he was in Bath, for example, when I was in Hastings, and he ended up getting to London just as I was meant to be catching the plane. Very frustrating. I really wanted my beloved nerds to meet my super-cool and
much-more-Aussie-than-me cousin, and vice-versa...
Getting to the airport went
perfectly. We gave ourselves plenty of time, I had all my documents and everything was packed and ready to go. I had too much stuff and it was too expensive to pay for the extra luggage, but I'd planned for that (and I will send Archie the money to post that bag here (plus a little extra for the trouble) just as soon as I get a settled address, or when he tells me he's sick of it getting in his way, whichever comes first). But then...
Then...
The flight was cancelled :smallsigh: So that was all incredibly
anti-climactic. Everyone on the flight was put onto one the next morning, and given free accommodation that night. But that didn't help the fact that I said all my heartfelt and sad goodbyes, only to then
not leave the country.
In any case, the farewells were made and with a great deal of sadness. It seemed fitting, I think, that Archonic_Energy and The Succubus were the first people I met in the UK, and among the last to see me go. I feel like there's some sort of symbolism, too, in that my
departure party was twice as big as my arrival.
I owe Succubus a lot (I shudder to think how much...), and for that matter
Archie too. I look forward to opportunities to repay them.
Although I'd only met
Onasuma the
day before, it still felt right that he'd be there to see me off. I confess that I may have developed a not insubstantial crush on him, and I hope he gets himself to more meet-ups because he'd be a
fantastic addition.
And then there was
Thufir. Ah, Thufir... My constant companion for the better part of a month, and my close friend for months before that. He was truly excellent company, as patient as you could expect (or more), and just generally wonderful. I hope - nay, I
demand - that he visits me here in Australia, the sooner the better. I'm proud to count him as one of
my best friends.
I made it to my replacement plane alright, and with mixed feelings (to put it lightly) I
left Britain behind, and went
home.