The Ridgeway West - Prologue

The Ridgeway - West

By Mark Walford Outward bound      Next

See Route on ......

After an uneventful drive we arrived at our accommodation in brilliant sunshine. Dorwyn Manor proved to be a very fine stay, the hosts more than welcoming, and there was an honesty box system in operation — bottled beer kept cold in a cooler, payment on trust. Bod and I homed in on this almost immediately.
Once we had all settled in, Colin and Jess walked into Avebury, where we were to join them later for dinner. Bod and I weren't long in following, along the A4361, which offers no grassy verge and no pedestrian footpath of any kind. I reflected on the irony of being hospitalised before taking a single step of the actual walk, as cars and lorries hurtled past and shoved warm, exhaust-laden gusts of air at us in passing. Eventually a gap appeared in the hedgerow and we escaped into an open grassy area, where we were introduced to our first sarsen stones.
They stood at intervals around the perimeter — strange, enigmatic, ancient, and endowed with a palpable presence.

Sarsen stones at Avebury

I ran a hand over the rough sandstone of one and found myself thinking that other hands, millennia ago, had rested on this exact same surface. A group of people stood in a ring around one of the stones a little way off. Academics or occultists, I couldn't say, but they were clearly deep into some kind of ceremony and we gave them the courtesy of a wide berth. These were not the only stones. They were everywhere. In any direction you cared to look, these misshapen lumps of hewn rock stood in silent lines, marching away along half-forgotten pathways and avenues. We spent a good while crossing and recrossing the A4361, wandering among them and taking photographs, until the need for beer and food drew us toward the Red Lion, where Colin and Jess were waiting.
It was exactly the sort of early evening that sitting outside with a cold beer was invented for. A glorious day, the sun still warm even at this late hour. We caught up on each other's lives, talked about the days ahead, and Bod summed up the general mood by suggesting we simply stay in Avebury for three days, drinking at the Red Lion, and invent a plausible account of the path to Goring on our return. It was tempting.
We were entertained by a character at the next table — a microlight pilot who had ventured a little too high, been blown badly off course, and landed eventually somewhere near Avebury. His tablemates turned out to be the rescue party who had eventually tracked him down. He seemed entirely and cheerfully unbothered by the whole episode and was already planning his next flight, *after I've apologised to the wife*.
We enjoyed a good dinner and then made our way back to Dorwyn Manor. We grabbed a few more honesty beers and settled down in the lounge to discuss the route ahead and pore over a few maps. I had brought my Osmo Action 4, voice control activated, and Bod seized on this immediately — delighted to discover that announcing *shut down camera* in the middle of my filming would do exactly that. It got a laugh, and I privately wondered whether this was going to become a running theme for the whole walk, given his long-standing aversion to being on camera. To his credit, he let it go after the one attempt.
We all eventually retired. Tomorrow offered sixteen miles in what the forecast was calling a heatwave.
Better than rain, I suppose.

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