A Tale of Old Stones - some you can touch and some you most definitely can't - part one

As I have said, the next couple of weeks were not super organized. I had booked a car. And I had book ended the time by booking in time at Hillfield Friary in Dorset at the end. I had also booked somewhere to stay in Salisbury on the first night. I had also decided I wanted to go to Stonehenge which was on the way to Salisbury Cathedral - which I wanted to visit for some unknown reason - maybe John Constable. 

Monday morning I set out for Heathrow Airport. Not to fly anywhere, but because the answer to my question to Google about where to hire a car from on London was Heathrow - biggest selection and best deals. So off I headed. Re-reading what I needed I was a little anxious - I did not have an international drivers license. (turned out that because I am from Aotearoa-New Zealand and my license is in English it was all good). The journey out was not simple or cheap. The Elizabeth line was down and the simplest way from Paddington was the Express. And then I had to negotiate where on God's earth the shuttles went from to get the the car rental places. (A nice surprise was that they went from where I caught a bus to Oxford in 1996 to the inaugural Conference on Youth Ministry Studies - and spending the day before it started with Michael and Carole Hughes - funny how places trigger things you have not thought about for a long time.)

Once in my little Fiat I plugged in my phone with Android auto, put "Stonehenge" into Google maps and set off. Thank God for Google Maps. I have no idea how  I would have negotiated my way out and onto the whatever road I needed to be on without it. I have no idea how I would have survived the next nearly 2 weeks without it. 

By lunch time I was at Stonehenge. Well, the visitors centre. I joined English Heritage which got me into other places, and onto the bus to and from the henge. I had lunch, looked around the exhibition, learnt about the history of Stonehenge, and then set off by foot down some old old history. Walking down these ancient bronze age barrows and trenches that have housed the dead and been sacred places - and then just farm land, for so long. Walking this way was walking in sacred time and place.

And then on the horizon Stonehenge was revealed. at least 5,500 years old. They are the most recent edition of these stones. there have been earlier formations before these. The are squatter than I had expected. But they seem anchored deep - in time and in this place. This place has been a wahi tapu for so long and for so many different people. Even today for all those thousands of people who come to see - they invite you to stop and breathe, to be in that place. I took way too many pictures. I did not stop and breathe as much as I might have. But it just held me there as i walked around twice slowly.

As someone who had "paid more" I got to walk in the inner circle but still nowhere near the stones. Sadly you can't touch them. Rebekah was outraged - what was the point if you can't touch them! But just think what thousands of hands and people pecking away to take home a relic would do. So while it would have been good to touch these old stones, the fact I cannot means they are still there in all their sacredness for me to just be in their presence and appreciate.

After two times around I took the bus back to the visitor centre. That was enough steps for that day. and set of of Salibury - old stones you can touch - but nowhere near as old as these ones. 

I've posted some more photos here.