Salisbury Plain

It was possibly not one of my best decisions to go to Stonehenge on a Saturday at the height of the holiday season on a Summer's day with virtualy cloudless blue skies. Predictably, at Amesbury on the A303 several miles from the site the traffic ground to crawl. I dived off into a new Service area (not many people realised it was there forntunately) to pick up some lunch and rejoined the queues about a mile further on, with just 1/2 mile (though 10mins or more!) to the next junction. Again I detoured off, and found Woodhenge, thought to be a wooden equivalent of Stonehenge. The long gone wooden structures are now represented by concrete posts - not quite the same! However, I enjoyed my lunch in relative peace sitting in a field next door.

Still determined to visit Stonehenge, I went round the "back way" - only to find that this is now the main way to reach the car park. The original turning off the A303 is permanently closed and is in the process of being dug up to be returned to grassland. At the other end of this road, a new visitors centre is being built, due to open this winter. I believe the idea is to close the current facilities and "bus" people down to the site from the new centre - allowing the site to be returned to nature - apart from the A303 with its solid stream of cars passing by!

None of my photos of the henge were that good - too many people, too bright and bland sky. The fields opposite though were quite striking, and I used Nik Silver Efex to convert to B&W.

I've back blipped the last few days - somehow I never found the time to download and process the photos before now!