Stone Henge, Bath and King Arthur

Day 3:
Welcome to Day 3 of our adventures. 

Just to recap Mahina is a friend that is over visiting from Australia so we are frantically running around trying to see as many things as possible in the short time that we have to see EVERYTHING. 

By we I don't mean Kyran, as he is stuck working for the whole time Mahina is visiting, so it is just Mahina and I off on a girls trip!


Alrighty lets get stuck into this blog!!

Today we are doing a mad dash to see Stone Henge, Bath and Glastonbury - the supposed burial location of the legendary King Arthur. 

Below: Is the rout that we took in the order that I listed them above!

Stone Hedge

First up on the itinerary was Stonehenge.
Thanks to Mahina still being jet lagged we were up and off early which was good. We needed the time as there was more or less an hour between each place we had to see let alone the time that we were going to spend seeing each place! 

So we arrived at Stonehenge just as they were opening. 
By the time we left we were glad we got there early as the tourists were literally arriving by the bus load.































Side Note: I have been to Stonehenge a few times over the years from when my parents brought me when we were kids to when Kyran and I went on some of our earlier adventures, and I must say that this site has changed a lot since then. 

The first time we came here I remember there was a construction fence around the henge and we had to look at it from afar, through the fence. Now there is a full visitors centre and busses that run as part of your entry fee from the visitor centre to the henge and back. You can also walk to the Stonehenge, and I imagine that it would be a lovely walk (maybe 30 mins max) but we didn't have time today. 

So we checked out the visitors centre, listened to some of the talks that were going on in the huts that were built to show how Neolithic people lived 4,500 years ago, and then it was to the buses to go see the damn stones. 

One interesting thing that I did learn from the people in the huts was that these huts were made of mud with straw roofs but that they would light their fires in the huts to keep warm.

I would have thought that the straw roof would catch fire but they didn't, and here is the logic behind it:

The roofs were more or less airtight, so as the smoke rises it stayed in the cone shaped roof so that later if a spark went up it would quickly die as fire needs oxygen to burn and the smoke guaranteed that that was not going to happen. So apparently it was pretty safe to have a fire in your straw hut!! Who knew!? makes sense though!

Another side note is that if you decide to walk from the visitor centre to the henge there is actually a few detours that you can take into the surrounding fields where you can see these 'out of place' mounds that rise from the otherwise flat landscape around. 
The mounds are actually ancient burial mounds!! 
It would have been nice to go and have a poke around and see them if we had the time. 

Some Information:
This Iconic symbol of Britain is a Circle of massive stones and is a masterpiece of engineering! Building it would have taken huge effort from hundreds of well-organised people using only simple tools and technologies. 

Two types of stone are used at Stonehenge – the larger sarsens and the smaller ‘bluestones’.

• The sarsen stones are a type of sandstone, which is found scattered naturally across southern England. Most archaeologists believe that these stones were brought from the Marlborough Downs, 20 miles (32km) away. On average the sarsens weigh 25 tons, with the largest stone, the Heel Stone, weighing about 30 tons.

• Bluestone is the term used to refer to the smaller stones at Stonehenge. These are of varied geology but all came from the Preseli Hills in south-west Wales. Although they may not appear blue, they do have a bluish tinge when freshly broken or when wet. They weigh between 2 and 5 tons each.

Below is a picture I stole from the internet that shows just how far they brought these stones from!!:

(https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/history-and-stories/building-stonehenge/)

Below is the theory of how they moved the stones and you can actually pull and push this display to understand how hard it was to move these buggers!!!

Ok we better get on with the rest of our adventure. There is heaps more to Stonehenge but we must keep moving! If you want to find out more information please visit: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/

Summary of Stonehenge from Mahina: For me Stonehenge was one of those sites that was on the bucketlist but there was not much information about it. A few conspiracies about the site and a others saying it was a very mystical and strange place to encounter. However as amazing as it was learn and to see it in front of me, I didn't find it a mystical place. 

Well with Stonehenge all done by 11am-ish were were off to Bath. 

Bath
Bath was about another hour away so by the time that we got there, found a parking spot and then got to the location were you can actually go and see the Roman Baths, we were (as always) long past lunch time so with things running away from us we spotted this awesome looking Cafe/bakery and decided that this was good enough... it was actually great!

Confession time: For any one who know Kyran and I they will know that we are... or at least we attempt to be Vegan... for the animal, planet, health... you know the deal. But we also don't try to be 'those' vegans either. Especially when travelling it can be quite difficult to eat vegan so sometimes we misbehave... 

This was one of those times, I really shouldn't have but I was hungry and well whatever... I ended up having one of these amazing looking thingy-do-dads above. 
However it was instant Karma because just as we got out of the pastries shop and walked around the corner there were these guys!

A bunch of Vegans handing out information etc and raising awareness. 

So Mahina says "ey, they are your mates aren't they?"  
well... I had to stand around the corner and finish my food before I could walk up to them and tell them they were doing a good job and to keep it up brother!!.  

HA HA HA instant Karma!!!... I have no regrets!

Right on with the blog!!
































We got to the ticket office at the entrance to the Roman Baths, we got our tickets and audio guides and we were in!

Again I have been here a few times before over the years, but this place is always the same... in fact it has been around since before Roman times!!





Nah it is always a good visit, and they always seem to have some people dressed in character to tell you their stories, and they never break character!

So this is Mahina with her very old fashioned boyfriend!!

At this point I had a friend that was having a life crisis so I took his call and Mahina buggered off and joined a tour that walked past. So Mahina do you want to tell us what you learned?

So Missy (Mercedes) was busy on the phone... a tour just so happened to walk past so I randomly joined them! 

The tour guide was very animated and it made the whole thing very exciting and instead of tuning out I actually listened. I also got to look at photos of how this place was discovered and the re-establishment of it. 

I would not be able to write down what i've learnt but if it was in front of me I would know how it works and walk you through it then. Overall this place was one of my highlights and the entire town looked like it was off Beauty and the Beast! 

After we had worked our way around the museum rather more quickly then one aught to do it, we were buggered... previous days adventures + jet lag + we are both not athletes... so we needed to come alive because we still had one more place to visit.   

The remedy: On the way back to the car we spotted a little tea shop and decided that some bubble tea might lift the sugar levels. 

Below: Mahina waiting outside for her tea, she couldn't acclimatise between the cold and the hot so she just sat out side.... do you take a layer off, or put one on.. who knows!! 

So we managed to zig-zag our way back and actually found the car but we couldn't leave Bath without seeing the iconic Royal Crescent of Bath















For more info. https://www.royalcrescent.co.uk/

We got there took a photo and got moving as the autumn afternoons were getting darker sooner and sooner, and we were running out of time!

King Arthur - Glastonbury 

Now this is a place that I can not say that I have been before. 

Below: The sign will tell you everything!

When we arrived at Glastonbury it was already after 5 and we were crossing our fingers that the location with all the action was a public park and would not close. 

Bad news we found it and we had to pay to get in, Good news they were open for another 45 mins.  So away we went to see it all in 45 mins!!

It is fair to say that is was quite a spectacular site with these massive ruins! you can see in the photo below just how tall they were with Mahina for scale.

Not only were the ruins quite tall they were everywhere, how big was this church?! but also how amazing and beautiful that something like this was built so long ago! 

Right behind Mahina in the photo above is the grave that you see to the left, that has the sign that we just read above.

There you go, the man, the legend.  

The site was not just ruins it also had a pond and a kitchen type of thing that was not so ruined and then there was this big old fancy looking pond that had massive fish in it and an orchard to the side. 

The orchard was full and overflowing with fruit!! the trees were covered in them, the ground was covered in them. There would have been some very happy wildlife around I am sure!!

Because of the myths and legends surround this area there was an overall pagan/spiritual vibe to the whole town, it was like stepping out of England and into some beach hippy colony. 

Below: A sculpture that was made out of sticks and then decorated with all sorts of things. At the base was a hole, it seems that people were adding offerings of fruit from the orchard. Mahina seeing if there was anything eatable *wink wink* taking advantage of putting her hand in a hole and not worrying if a big Australian snake was going to bite it!

As we headed to the exit with only minutes till they came looking for us to kick us out we stumbled into the kitchen building that was set up very lovely, and as you might have expected to find it when it was up and running. 

I found it fascinating that the four corners of the building were set up as fire places for cooking and in the middle were all the tables.

Might I say that there were some pretty good acoustic properties to the kitchen that combined with the exhaustion lead to me singing choir music with the echo.  

Right that was it, we were out of time! As we were headed to the door they were just starting to do the rounds and tell us all to bugger off!

That brings us to the end of day 3's adventures Above is a photo of one of the store fronts in Glastonbury. 

To top it all off after three massive days of running around, on Day 4 we were heading to the airport to Poland to a Polish wedding!

So Mahina needed a set of nails done for that of course!! .... 4 hours later... by 1am ...

There you have it folks BTS Nails ready for a wedding done by yours truly. 

Well that is it thank you for reading, and see you in the next blog as we run off to the airport to catch a plane to Poland and much much more!