21 August 2020 (Friday) - Woodhenge

 

 

Finding myself wide awake a couple of hours before anyone else I emptied the dishwasher and told the Internet about yesterday’s adventures whilst the rain hammered down outside. Or, that is I told the Internet about yesterday’s adventures once I’d pointed my lap-top at the right wi-fi network. I then sent out a few birthday messages and had a look at the geo-map as the rain hammered down outside. Ironically the forecast for back home was a day of sunshine, but here it looked like fifty per cent chance of showers all day long. (In the end we had a few spots of rain and that was all).

My piss boiled somewhat when I read a “Needs Maintenance” log which had been posted on one of my newer geocaches. Someone didn’t like the wording of the hint that I’d given and felt I should change it.

 

We had a bit of brekkie, and pondered over what to do today. The rain had stopped but was expected to return shortly and the wind was getting stronger and stronger. Bearing in mind we were still rather worried about Pogo’s leg we opted for a shorter walk today.

There was a dodgy five minutes when something big and heavy bounced of off the windscreen of "er indoors TM" car, but it wasn’t long before we were parking at Woodhenge. Have you ever been to Woodhenge? I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I was disappointed. Billed as “an atmospheric Neolithic site” it was actually a load of concrete markers in a random field. Perhaps we might have been more impressed had the wind not been quite so biting, but I think it fair to say that Pogo summed it up by taking a dump in the middle of it.

From here we took a short walk to the Cuckoo Stone. Anyone feeling that Woodhenge was disappointing would have cried at the Cuckoo Stone. It really was a random boulder in a field in the arse end of nowhere. But like so many random boulders in the arse end of nowhere, an Earthcache had been created around the thing so we got the answers to a few questions about it, and I shall send an email saying “blah blah chalk” to some random geocacher tomorrow.

 

Pausing only briefly to look at a monument to the site of a military kite-making establishment we thought we might then mosey on down along the footpaths to Stonehenge. As we walked we were harangued by some normal people who wanted to know where the best footpath to get to Stonehenge was. We explained that we thought it was along the road a bit, and carried on along the road. As we passed the footpath we didn’t want so the normal people pulled up in their car and told us that we’d missed the path. We told them we hadn’t, and they then tried (and failed) to be very subtle in their attempt to follow us.

We got within sight of Stonehenge, but we were in a field full of sheep. The dogs wouldn’t stop eating sheep poo, the wind was blowing at over fifty miles per hour as the remains of a tropical storm were passing by, there was no shelter at all, and the sky looked incredibly dark and we could feel spots of rain. We decided to retreat.

Ironically within half an hour the weather chirped up a bit. I say “chirped up”; the rain came to nothing but the wind remained.

 

We found some picnic benches by where we’d parked and ate that of our lunch which didn’t get blown away into the distance, then headed back to base. We stopped off to get petrol. The filling station had a big sign saying that face coverings were mandatory; I was the only person wearing one. I asked the chap behind the counter why no one was wearing them – he said he had enough to do without making trouble for himself by upsetting the customers.

 

Once home we sat in the garden drinking up the last of the beer before setting about a very good bit of dinner. I’ve not had chicken teriyaki before; I would certainly scoff it again.

Beer gave way to port, the cheese came out… I’ve eaten fa too much…

I took quite a few photos today, and now it’s bed time…

 

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