| Day 22 - Devon to Portsmouth |
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| Copyright Famocon Tours 2001 |
| Today was always intended to be the longest drive of the trip. So we were up early and ready to go with our bags mostly packed from the night before. We made our farewells to the cottage and to the owners who lived around the corner and who dropped in to say goodbye. We very much enjoyed their cottage and hospitality. We left via Newtown on our way to Tiverton and the M5 from where we turned off near Cullompton and headed through Dulford, Honiton, Monkton, Yarcombe and Chard before arriving in Crewkerne. The countryside continued to look as picturesque as we have seen on our trip and we had some good photo opportunities along the way. It would be a lot better if more roadside parking areas were created, particularly at good lookout locations. From Crewkerne we made our way through Yeovil, Sherbourne and East Stour to Shaftesbury where we had lunch in a fine old Elizabethan tea room near Gold Hill. The view from the top of Gold Hill looking down at the descending row of cottages with the distant fields and woods in the background is one of the most popularly photographed sites in England - everyone has seen it! Shaftesbury is well worth a walk around - you can visit St Peter's Church as well as the remains of the old Abbey. There are not a lot of remains at the Abbey, rather more like a floor plan - but there are some interesting graves and a very extensive, well labelled herb garden. Shaftesbury is located well above the surrounding countryside and there are good viewing areas, especially near the Abbey. We then passed through Ludwell, Swallowcliffe, Wilton, Stoford and Winterbourne Stoke before reaching Stonehenge out on the Salisbury Plain. Stonehenge is clearly one of the premier attractions in the UK and the nearby parking, catering and shopping facilities are large enough to meet the needs of hordes of tourists. With careful searching for signs we found our way to Salisbury via Amesbury and the Woodfords - Upper Woodford, Middle Woodford and Lower Woodford. This drive along the Avon river was one of the highlights of our tour - there were more thatched roof cottages in this stretch than we saw anywhere else. The river flows through the Woodford Valley. The Avon could not flow more gently than through these lush water meadows. There seem to be a lot of rivers in England called Avon and they can't possibly be the same one. We eventually found out that Avon in fact means river and that accounts for the name's popularity. Attractions in the valley include the Bridge at Woodford pub which has a wonderful beer garden with grassy lawns extending to the banks of the river. The local ducks and swans are among the pub's patrons. Further down at Lower Woodford is the Wheat Sheaf pub, a popular refreshment and food stop. On the way you can turn off to Heale House, a stately home on the river with beautiful gardens and a photogenic stone arched bridge. Salisbury is a big bustling town with many museums and heritage buildings to visit but the Cathedral, built in the early 1200's, is justifiably the stand out attraction. Nearby is Old Sarum, a huge market town which predated Salisbury. This town's history goes beyond Saxon and Roman times back to the earliest origins of communal life in Britain. Our tour of Salisbury was unfortunately cut short by the major traffic delays we experienced getting into the city on a Friday afternoon. This was the worst traffic seen on our trip. From here we went to Alderbury, Plaitford and Wigley and then on to the M27 which took us all the way in to Portsmouth for the first of our three nights stay. |
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