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Day 18 - A visit to Wilton House - 0.0 miles
Day 19 - A bus trip to Avesbury - 2.8 miles
Day 20 - Lost in the wilderness trying to reach Bath - 27.5 miles

Day 18 - A visit to Wilton House - 0.0 miles

    It was hot and humid during the night. The problem was complicated by the fact that the hostel manager insisted that all interior doors of the hostel be closed due to fire regulations, stopping any chance of a draft or breeze through the rooms. Jeanette snuck out of bed in the middle of the night and used her panniers to block open the door to the dorm room she was in. Even so, she reported that she and the other girls and ladies were tossing and turning all night. One even fell out of her upper bunk bed scaring herself and the other sleepers to total consciousness.

    We went down to breakfast and as we looked outside we saw that the sky was dark and overcast. The hostel host told us that the weather predictions were for rain. We had planned to ride to Wilton House, the home of the Lord of Pembrooke, but the weather looked so ominous that we discussed other alternatives. We decided to walk to the bus station downtown and take the bus instead of risking life and limb along an A road during a rainstorm.

    We donned our rain coats after breakfast and after walking down town were soon on the bus for the 3.5 mile ride to Wilton. The bus ride was short and we were at Wilton so early that we walked to town for a late breakfast pastry snack and a cup of coffee. Wilton is another cute little period town that boasts Wilton House, the Wilton Carpet Factory and an ornate Italianate church. 

    We toured Wilton House first and enjoyed the tour. In fact, in retrospect, we liked Wilton House the most of any castle we were to visit in England. It had a warmth and lived in feeling that seemed to reflect a true caring for its heritage and family place. Arundel was a close second. 

    After the tour, we walked across to the Wilton Carpet Factory and the shops surrounding it. We were the only clients on the last tour of the day and had a personal escort by one of the tour guides. When the tour first started, the elderly lady seemed almost bothered that she would have to do the tour for just two people but our interest soon generated a smile and a positive change in attitude. We talked and laughed our way through the factory. Our guide even stopped production to ask some of the master weavers about some of the more technical questions we had.

    We caught the bus back to Salisbury. We were really tired of eating out and decided to make use of the hostel's individual kitchens. The hostel had four, all equipped, available at no fee with the only expectation that guests clean up what they use. We picked up enough groceries to cook a huge one pot meal and to make a lunch for the next day. The cost was less than half what we would have spent on an inexpensive dinner. In addition to the food, we also bought some wine coolers and two pints of beer, useful medication to decompress after almost three weeks of touring.

    The dinner cooked up easily. When we sat down to eat, we were surprised to see a New Zealand family that we had met at Arundel sitting around another dining room table. We shared experiences with them and compared the rest of our itinerary. We chatted away for a few hours and then retired to the lounge where we kicked back. I read some cycling magazines and Jeanette was engrossed in a book, The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, lent her by Susan. She wanted to finish it before leaving England.

Day 19 - A bus trip to Avesbury - 2.8 miles

    It was really humid during the night. Sleeping was difficult for Jeanette, made worse by the fact that the Door Nazi did a walk through in the middle of the night and closed all the doors that had been blocked open to allow a breeze to blow through the hostel. It wasn't as bad in our room since we had a huge window that could be opened to the windward side of the building. The guys slept well, the girls roasted.

    When we went down to breakfast the sky was even darker than the day before. The rain had ended up being intermittent the previous day and we had almost wished we had ridden the bikes the short distance to Wilton. This day, the skies opened up and a torrent of water was falling. We had planned to ride a well recommended 38 mile loop to Stonehenge to see the stone circle and visit Old Sarum, an ancient mound that marked an earlier settlement. The rain was coming down in such prodigious amounts that we quickly scratched any idea of riding bikes anywhere.

    Advertisements were posted throughout the hostel listing a tour of Avesbury and Stonehenge for 5.75 pounds each by bus. We inquired and found that what was really advertised was a metro bus trip with transfers that allowed one to visit both stone circles. No "tour" was involved. We decided that a bus ride was preferable to a cycle ride in the pouring rain. We walked to the station in the rain and finally figured out what bus we should take to visit Avesbury, the site really recommended for anyone that wanted to walk among the stones. Jeanette had visited Stonehenge over 15 years previously and had been disappointed since no access was permitted. Tourists were kept over 100 yards away from the circle and just viewed it from a distance.

    The bus ride, in heavy rain, took over an hour and a half to reach Avesbury. The windows were fogged on the bus and we used some of the paper bags from our packed lunch to wipe away the moisture. On the way, we passed through some interesting scenery including Marlborough, a medium sized functioning once medieval town and a "secret" air base, with fences and guards but no name plaques or ID.

    We could tell as we approached Avesbury. A corridor of standing stones ran along side the road. We had told the bus driver that we wanted to get out at the circle and he turned back and told us we were there. In fact, we found that, with our American accents, many of the people we met were inordinately considerate and helpful. Was it just the bonds of a common language? I think there's a lot more to it than that.

    We walked among the stones for an hour. I approached a major stone and felt some indescribable urge to touch it. At the same time, I was hesitant and expected to feel some flow of power either from myself into the stone or from the stone to myself when my hand made contact. I closed my eyes and leaned forward, my right hand extended, my left hand wrapped around my right wrist. I touched the stone. It was cold and wet from the rain but no surge of energy was felt. I was relieved and disappointed at the same time.

    The stone circle is huge. So large that the small village of Avesbury takes up one quadrent of the circle. The remaining three quarters is grazing pasture for sheep. Jeanette saw me walking through the pastures and yelled for me to watch out where I was stepping. Something I didn't appreciate since other tourists were within hearing distance. She grinned, I gave her the universal sign of disapproval. She laughed.

    An hour at the circle in the rain was enough for us to gain an appreciation of this ancient wonder. We returned to the bus stop and waited less than five minutes for our return trip to Salisbury. The rain followed us back to town but diminished in volume until only a light mist. We walked back to the hostel and ate a late lunch, our second of the day. We had eaten our self prepared lunch on the bus to Avesbury. The brightening skies encouraged us to ride the bikes to the old town to visit Salisbury cathedral, one of England's most famous. 

    We arrived in time to attend Evensong, an Anglican prayer service at the end of the day. We sat through the ceremony and wondered, the Anglican ministers seemed to be much more in tune to pomp and circumstance than our familiar American Catholic priests and the American modern relaxed liturgy.

    Services over, we found our way to a hall attached to the cathedral and were surprised to find one of the four surviving copies of the Magna Carta. The document was enclosed in a steel case and covered with glass that appeared over an inch thick. It was facing a windowless wall and was shielded from any random rays of sun. We marveled at seeing one of history's most famous documents.

    We had enjoyed our home cooked dinner so much the night before that we rode to a grocery store and picked up some chicken, vegetables and other things to make another simple meal for dinner. A quick ride back to the hostel and we were soon cooking our purchases, sipping another vintage of wine and talking with our New Zealand friends, comparing notes on our day's adventures.

    Dinner finished, we did some loads of wash in the hostel's laundry and then retired to the lounge for more magazine and book reading, conversation and contemplation of the things we'd seen and done. The night was cooler and bed soon beckoned. We were off to Bath tomorrow and planned to get an early start.

Total 2.8 miles

Day 20 - Lost in the wilderness trying to reach Bath - 27.5 miles

    The ride to Bath was to be our last long bike ride. The remainder of the trip would involve train travel for the most part. We were determined to get a good start and do the whole long ride, about 45 to 50 miles by bike. We awoke early and headed toward Wilton, a place we were familiar with from our bus trip on day 19. The weather was warm but the skies overcast which made for easy and pleasant riding. We were following the Lonely Planet Cycle Guide that promised a route of minor roads that were almost traffic free and extremely appealing. 

    The instructions lead us to a turn along a stone wall that took us to a small road in Wilton. The instructions read that we should turn right but I was sure that there must have been a printed mistake and we turned left, the direction we believed would take us to Bath. The turn took us on a tree covered route that was easy riding, with a few rolling hills and a gentle downward grade. We rode the lane for almost ten miles since our instructions had us following our intended route for a similar distance before looking for any change in direction. We rode along until we came to the outskirts of a small village. I didn't see any instructions on the route sheet that indicated that we'd encounter a village so I pulled out the big map. I couldn't  find the village we were at on the map. I started following an outward spiral from Salisbury and finally located where we were at, ten miles south of the trail we should have been on.

    We plotted a course through the countryside that would take us north, back to the east-west route we should have been on. We shrugged, after all, this was the first time we had been lost during our entire trip. We figured we'd live through the experience. We left the village of Broad Chalke and headed towards Fovant, about three miles away. The ride took us through some almost magical English countryside of small farms, thatched houses, tree lined roads and quiet surroundings. 

    Once at Fovant we crossed the A road only to find a road marker advising of a 20% grade for the next few miles. Time for a meeting of the minds. We talked the situation over. We could push on, facing another 40 miles of riding and unknown grades, exhausting ourselves and possibly end up stranded somewhere in Middle Earth for the evening or ride back to Salisbury and take the train to Bath. We had rooms reserved at the Bath Hostel so we decided that it would be better to make a planned retreat rather than charge ahead into the unknown.

    The ride back to Salisbury along the A 30 was surprisingly easy. Traffic was light and the road was fairly wide, something we accepted gladly but were not used to. We rode through Wilton and stopped at the Italianate church as we passed through. Not being scholars of architecture, the church seemed pretty but not that different from many of the ancient structures we had seen on our journey. A short time later we were at the bus station in Salisbury. We had a good laugh at ourselves as we bought tickets to Bath. A short wait and we were on the train for an hour and a half ride.

    We were booked into the Bath YHA. We looked at the map of the city when we left the train station and saw that it was only a two mile ride to the hostel. It was still early. We set off, still full of energy since we had enjoyed a good rest from our morning cycling. The directions led us to the bottom of a narrow path that seemed to go straight uphill. It was much too steep to ride up so we walked the bikes, sometimes finding shortcuts between houses as we followed the signs uphill to the hostel. An exhausting hour later we finally found the entrance to the building. Even that was a steep uphill walk. We checked in and locked our bikes in the shed. We'd be damned if we would ride back down that hill only to have to ride up again!

    I had been given the phone number of a touring member's acquaintance in Bath. He suggested that we call and see if we could impose on his generosity in having him give us a tour of the town. I called and he said he'd be right over.

    Richard met us and we climbed in his Mercedes. He drove us to his apartment in the central part of town. After a quick tour of his flat we went on a walking tour that lasted several hours. I kept it to myself but I found that I HATED Bath. The entire medieval city had been knocked down by a developer in the 1760's. He built row upon row of Georgian townhouses, pretentious in appearance but utterly faceless in character. They reminded me of the tenements seen in the the cities of Chicago, Boston and New York. I endured the walk and the talk but was glad when it was time to eat.

As we walked through a courtyard to dinner Richard suddenly asked us to hold up and called out to a friend. The younger man recognized him and walked over. Richard introduced us to him and advised us we were meeting the district's currently serving Member of Parliament. The MP greeted us warmly and thanked us for spending our American dollars in his district. We laughed with him and had Richard take our picture. Although I hated Bath, I had enjoyed the day and appreciated Richard's efforts.  We took Richard to dinner for his troubles. 

    At dinner we revealed that we were booked into the Bath YHA for only one night. We had attempted to book two nights but were unable to because the town was hosting an international youth volleyball tournament. Richard offered lodging in one of the apartments of the Georgian townhouse that he owned in one of the most posh neighborhoods of Bath. We walked back to his place after dinner and toured the accommodations. The apartment was a temporarily vacant college student pad. The ashtrays were full of cigarette butts and the counters and tables had empty booze bottles and beer cans for decorations. I told Richard we'd think about it. I could tell that Jeanette was thinking, "No, no, no."

    We had already made arrangements for a second night's lodging at the town YMCA. It was billed as as nice as the YHA hostel. We discussed the situation before going to bed that night. We decided that the YMCA was a better choice than the beer cans and butts accommodations offered as an alternative even though Richard made the offering in the best of faith.

Total mileage 27.5

Day 21 - Around Bath - 1.5 miles
Day 22 - On to Oxford by train, riding around Oxford - 8.6 miles

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