Ridgeway 2013 day 6

Sunday 18^th August 2013 Chiseldon to Avebury

After breakfast the B&B owner drove me back up to a spot just before Liddington Hill, so I retraced my steps somewhat.  Luckily, before I left the vehicle, I discovered I still had the key to the B&B in my pocket.  That has been the first of 2 times I have ever forgotten to return a key before leaving, the other time requiring a 500-metre walk back to do so.

Today was one of the two longest days on the trail, made even longer by the exploring I did at the end.  The first major site on the trail, and that the trail went right through, was Barbury Castle, another hill fort.  It was not obvious how big it was until I had departed and looked back from further along the trail.

Barbury Castle

I took a short detour into Ogbourne St. George (to see if the pub would have the footie match on – they didn’t), returning to the Ridgeway via the railway footpath.  At South End I began encountering horses heading in the opposite direction.  Over 3 hours or so hundreds of them must have passed me.

I stopped along Smeathe’s Ridge to eat a sandwich, and then just before Hackpen Hill encountered a chap in a caravan charging people £2 to enter a field where there were 2 crop circles, but I was smart and wandered into a hallowed copse slightly further along the trail and took few photos of the circles from there.

The start of the many horses, and the crop circle caravan

Crop circles

Hallowed copse

I then wandered around Hackpen Hill to see the chalk horse there.

Hackpen White Horse

Carrying along I walked a final lengthy section to Overton Hill passing a young lady carrying a hoola-hoop and definitely not wearing good footwear for LDWing.

As it was only 3 p.m. I did a bit of a walk around some of the sites surrounding Avebury, including the Sanctuary, East Kennet, West Kennet long barrow, Silbury Hill, West Kennet avenue, and around the Avebury stone circles, the latter being somewhat dismantled and partially re-assembled and extremely busy on a Sunday afternoon.

The Sanctuary

West Kennet long barrow

Silbury Hill

The Avenue

I ate fish ‘n’ chips in Avebury before wandering into a neighbouring village to find my B&B for the night, passing by some long stones in the descending twilight.

Addendum: As my bus left in the late morning on the Monday, I had the opportunity to wander around the Avebury stone circles in the early morning and had them all to myself, so got some “people-free” photos of them.  A few samples are below.