Moose on the Move!

Things have been moving fairly quickly since we got Rosie. That is what we have called the car. Why? Because she is Red and a Renault and life got Rosier when we got her... ? That will do.

Actually not everything has been moving quicker - just things outside the windows.

One of our first stops on Saturay (9th April) was at a local shopping centre, to get some of the things that we immediately knew we would need...pillows, some plastic plates, a sleeping bag for chris and a book of campsites all over the country.

Our second stop was a service station with a vaccumm with which to clean out all the bits and pieces that the previous owners had neglected to remove. We found amongst the half eaten crackers and broken crayons, a little picture book (which we didn't keep) a funnel from the top of a jerry can (which we didn't keep) and a small black umbrella (which we did keep).

Then we were off! We decided that with our new found freedom we ought to head off and see something that would otherwise have been difficult to get to. Also something that we both thought would be pretty cool to go and see - Stone Henge! Yes that mystical ring of rocks was calling us.

With me navigating and Chris doing an awesome job at the wheel we headed off. I spied in our handy driving atlas that (almost) on the way to Stone Henge there was another interesting sight and so I guided Chris in that direction. Before long we arrived at Wood Henge. Yes, WOOD HENGE. We had both pictured somthing similar to Stone Henge.

What we got looked a little more like a modern art installation. After reading the information on site we discovered that in fact it wasn't muck of a surprise that there was no wood left because it was even older than Stone Henge. In more recent times they have put short concrete markers where the wooden poles used to be. (So I guess it kind of is a piece of modern art).

From there we went to Stone Henge. It was somewhat more impressive. Actually it was awesome! We suffered all the way around the site though because of the amazingly cold wind that was blowing! This did do good things to the number of people there though. I can imagine that when the sun is warm and the breeze is only cool there are many more people oggling the stones. The audio tour was very informative, and helped to keep at least one ear warm.

That night we slept in Rosie. It was cold. There are no two ways about it. The seats were quite comfortable and our towels in the windows made good enough curtains, but our sleeping bags alone were not enough to keep us warm and we both woke up wearing quite a bit more clothing than we had gone to bed wearing.

That day (Sunday) we headed into the little town of Salisbury to visit the cathedral and have some breakfast. Not neccessarily in that order.

It is a pretty amazing Cathedral - they all seem to be. We discovered (by eaves dropping) that almost all of the stained glass panels were post medieval. Apparently some guy called Cromwell decided while he was running the country that there should be no images of Christ around so all the windows in cathedrals got smashed, statues were destroyed and so on. There are only four small pieces left way up near the top where he couldn't be bothered to finish the job, where the original windows remain. They have tried to recreate the remaining windows to match and have basically done a pretty good job. (The 'new' windows are still hundreds of yers old mind).

All photo's are here.

The other really interesting thing that we found out about the Cathedral (which has the highest spire in England) is that the foundation for the biulding is only four feet deep. Apparently the structure shouldn't be able to stand but because of the water table being high (?) it does. But they have to pull up a tile in the floor each week to check the water level and make sure that it is still ok. Cool.