I picked up the hire car today which was a relief but a strange experience as I had to negotiate English roads, speed limits and just driving in general.

I drove to Exeter with the hope of seeing the cathedral but it was impossible to find a park and when I did the ticket machine wouldnt accept the coins I had - it seems that you pay for pretty much everything in the UK. That also coincided with not being able to make a phone call on my phone card and so as a result of a few other technical details and misdirections  I decided to cut my losses and run.

Yesterday I metioned how I enjoyed the freedom of following my nose but today it felt like I was being a little too haphazard in my planning - well in my lack of planning. I realised how much Ive been relying on the internet to do all the work for me but my iphone is not yet functional here so Ive been flying blind.

The trip from Exeter to Stonehenge was much longer than I thought it would be - well Ive ended up in Bath and am at the pub writing this now after perhaps 6 or 7 hours in the car. Driving in England is fun but intense.

Arriving at Stonehenge was the culmination of maybe ten to fifteen years of dreaming. It really is an amazing place and when you think about the mechanics involved in creating the configuration of standing stones with the technology that existed 5000 years ago it really is a true mystery. The whole area is roped off however and the closest you get is really around 20 metres. A place like this needs to be felt - touched and leant on. I wanted to lie on the grass but resisted …. I was at the stones at around 1pm but kind of wished I was there at sunrise or set - alone and silent.

Some stonehenge images on flickr.

The rest of the day was spent driving with a small intermission at Avebury which is a town built in the middle of a giant stone circle. Its hard to discern the effects of driving, the breathwork workshop and these sites but I there is a really quite an amazing power at Avebury, despite at some point in the last few thousand years a road was built right through the middle of the circle. It was nice to see the sheep in the paddock rubbing themselves on the stones in the circle … kind of demonstrated how much a part of the landscape these things are … they have been there for 5ooo or so years and everybody is just used to them.

Its easy to postulate about the purpose of the stone circles and there are plenty of feasible ideas - observatory, ritual places etc. The stone circles are both mundane and transcendant. They are in the landscape - mysterious and everyday at the same time. Tim said that the power of the English landscape is really in the land itself and nothing made by humans (Im paraphrasing) and I think above all the circles point to the power of the Earth underneath rather than containing specific power within themselves.

Avebury Flickr images

Im writing thisafter a few pints in a pub at Bath (so apologies for the typos, mispelling etc) - Bath is amazing but Ill write more after exploring it tomorrow. Not sure whether Ill be here tomorrow night but I like it so much I may well be.