Ridgeway Trip III: We hit the trail

 This was our first real day of hiking, and it started off rainy.  We had a lovely breakfast at our mini-hotel and Mike drove us to Avebury, where we took off down Green St, which is also a herepath -- a road for the Saxon army.  Maybe Alfred the Great came down this road!*  There was a heavy drizzle, but we had waterproof or -resistant everything, and wool socks, and hats, so we were okay for the first mile or so.  Eventually we hit the actual Ridgeway, and about then the rain really got started.  It rained pretty good for a while there, and that went okay, though my coat started to get a little soggy on one shoulder.  Our 'waterproof' pants got soggy too.  And the rain let up, and the wind was constant, so pretty soon our pants were dry again.  

Starting out with shiny new equipment

Looking back down the herepath to Avebury

I was keeping an eye out for a particular stone in a field, and when I saw it was near, we were able to enter the field through a gate (quite legally) and go down a path right to the Polisher's Stone, which ancient people used to polish spears and things.  It has deep grooves in it, worn by the action.

The Polisher's Stone!

First day and I'm already thinking about DWJ descriptions --
it was a lot like the Shield of Oreth in Dalemark

That got our pants wet again, since the grass was long.  And pretty soon it started pouring.  The rain was just about sideways, and it was comically heavy.  Water poured from my left pant leg into my previously pleasantly warm and dry sock. My jacket, only resistant, soaked my shirt underneath.  We were able to find a bit of shelter under a large copse of trees (most of the time, there are not trees) and of course, it promptly stopped raining.  We ventured out and met some cows doing the same thing as us on the other side of the copse.  After this the rain was lighter and it started clearing up, or at least mostly not raining.  After a while we found a log, upon which we tried to dry a few things in the wind while having a small snack (it's actually quite hard to be hungry when you're hiking, we find).  As we kept going it got gradually sunnier, and though my feet never dried, most of the rest of me did.

Our fellow shelter-seekers

We also passed some long-haired cattle in a field, which needed to be photographed.  About halfway along, we got to Hackpen Hill, which has a chalk horse carved into one side, but we never got to see it.  It's not a steep hill and we couldn't see much besides wheat, and it wasn't meant to be spotted from above anyway.  We were past it before we even realized.  Luckily we caught a glimpse of it from the bus yesterday!  We also ran into a huge old copse of trees, making a ton of noise from the wind.  We went in to have a look -- it's sort of a little picnic area -- and there was an extended family with some kids playing there, which was fun.  We didn't stay long though.

Not too long after this we ran into two older fellows having their lunch, who hailed us and asked where we were from and where we were going.  They were finishing a few days of hiking and had stayed the night at the place we were headed for, and told us that we only had "three hours of old-fellow walking" ahead of us.  We were surprised to realize we had already gone nearly six miles.  This was right at the foot of Barbury Castle, an Iron Age hillfort with a double wall on top of the hill.  We headed up and, once at the top, were hit by amazingly strong wind, the kind that pushes you around.  The hillfort is actually huge, much larger than any I've been to before (in my extensive experience, ha).  On the other side, we sat down right against the outer wall, where it was fairly sheltered from the wind, to eat our packed lunch.   Cheese and tomato sandwiches, a banana, and crisps made for a pretty good lunch.  And we took our shoes off; clever people had even brought extra socks, but I was not clever.

View from Barbury Castle

Getting blown away by the wind

We set off east from Barbury Castle to a somewhat different landscape.  After passing a carpark and some tree-covered lanes, we came out to a wide, grassy track along the top of a ridge.  That went along for most of the last three miles, until we got to some rougher ground along a cattle farm and then hit the edge of the village of Ogborne St George.  Here we left the Ridgeway and followed a short footpath that came out at the churchyard.  It's a beautiful church but we couldn't stop to see it properly, since more than one of our band were now desperate to get to a WC and close enough to civilization to not want to use the bushes.  Another half mile or so of village got us to our destination, the local inn and pub.  The village has nothing else; we saw a sign for the village shop and post office, but in fact it closed in 1993.   We had time to rest for an hour before dinner, and we had a lovely small meal, after which we all soaked our feet, talked with our families, and got ready for some most welcome bed.  

Ogbourne St George church

*Alfred the Great and his army spent a lot of time marching around the Ridgeway and nearby herepaths, so I gather that yes, he almost certainly did.