The Wonders of Stongehenge & Avebury

A group of us made a day trip out to Wiltshire in England to visit the famous Stonehenge, a circle of ancient stones built between 3,000 and 1,600 BC. Declared a World Heritage site, it is one of the most important prehistoric monument in Britain. The location is only about 2 hours drive away from London and with our rented car and handful of snacks, we made our way to Wiltshire.

As we grew nearer to the location, we encountered traffic along the straight road. We realised that cars have slowed to a crawl just so they can view the Stonehenge visible from the road. Soon enough, the Stonehenge grew closer and we veered off to find park.

It cost us £6.90 for the entrance fee and a little bit extra for an audio guide. We followed a set pathway that circled around the stones as the public weren't allowed close access to the monuments. There were masses of tourists lounging on the grass around the walkway listening intently to their audio guide.

The majestic, all mysterious stonehenge.

I didn't feel an enlightening force emanating from the stones or any other mysterious sensation but it was pretty amazing to simply imagine how this monument was constructed thousands of years before forklifts were invented.

Hmm the stones seem smaller than we thought...

From left to right: Mel, Linda, Simon, Andy, Karen, Kevin, Aman

This is an illustration of how the Stonehenge looked in its complete formation. Pretty amazing.

We then drove from the Stonehenge to the village of Avebury to visit the Avebury Henge monument. The monument was constructed during the Neolithic period and comprises of a large henge, several stone circles, stone avenues and barrows. The stones in contrast to the famous Stonehenge were not as large and range in size and shape. They were distributed throughout the village in a patterned manner and dates to about 5,000 years old.

Village of Avebury.

Before finding these Neolithic stones in the village, we played a contemporary game of Jenga on a monolithic scale. It was awesome. Unfortunately, our game was cut short as Linda pulled out an unstable piece and our Jenga monument crumbled into a heap.

It was then an onward bound to see the real monuments. Of course, when we found them, we had to attempt to conquer 'em all - by scaling them!

















Left image: Simon and the girls. Right image: The boys on their rock.

Of course, Simon, the most excited conqueror of us all went and found the biggest rock he could possibly find and proceeded to climb it. Thankfully, he didn't break a knee cap in the process. Hail Simon!

Simon on his stone perch.

Soon the sky started to grow dark and rain fell. It was our signal to say our goodbyes to the Village of Avebury.