Grey Whethers (Sarcen stones)

I've bought another week-long bus ticket, so...

It was off to Marlborough, north Wiltshire first thing, which takes over an hour and a half to go the 20 or so miles...for the Fyfield Sarcen Stones.

Wikipedia

Natural England

My ambition (an ambitious one) was to walk the many miles in the direction of Avebury ancient stone circle, to re-enact a walk I undertook many years ago, when the buses went past Avebury (they don't now, of course) and from there I trekked the many miles to Marlborough and my return home.

I seemed to end up going on completely different tracks and paths as I followed rigidly the White Horse Trail up to these Sarcen Stones and to return by a different route, I stuck to the higher Wessex Ridgeway, an extremely ancient route that would have been used by our bronze age and Neolithic forefathers.

The stones are randomly placed and scattered about. Stonehenge and Avebury used stones in their construction uprooted from this site. It is the best site in England for such stones, apparently. I'm far too tired to explain it any better than the either of the links, so do check those out!

It took four hours to walk there - and I was hungry, thirsty and a bit disorientated. Greedily snacking on my sandwiches and itching to take the pics and found that I had cheated somewhat and was in 'Access' field, meaning I was not in an officially open part of the site to the public and in fact was the home to a large number of frisky young bullocks and cows!

No fancy black and white images, just good ole colour to show off the natural habitat and the colour of the stones themselves. Edited three or four and this is probably no better than the others, but it shows the stones off nicely.

LARGE (for the veining on the stones)

The bovine residents soon charged in - and I made a bee-line for the nearest gate, no questions asked or excuses made - I had got my shots and I was out of there!!

Soon after, I found the proper public access part that I had been visited the previous occasion - and what a major disappointment! The stones were far more widely and less intensely spread and where I had come from, the animals had eaten the grass short, to show the stones off far better! These others were almost invisible in amongst the long grass!

So a bit of naughtiness on my part got you lovely lot a far better pic than you might have done otherwise and me feeling rather pleased with myself.

The long, return, tiring walk back to Marlborough took an age and I could barely walk by the end of it....So many miles on a hot day was a bit beyond me, to be honest!

Had a disjointed sleep and now - well, commenting might be a bit thin right now and of course I do have to use this bus ticket every day now that I've bought it...

Huge thanks for all the comments, stars and Favourites on yesterday's Poppies in the field Blip - it did really well and hung in at no 2 in the Spotlights for ages!

Lens is Nikkor 10-24mm