He’s smiling, in fact they both are - the men from the council. I suppose a rainy day will find the van lifers in, not out wandering around, so a good time to call, but my heart is pounding. I’ve had plenty of practice at sounding confident when I’m not, so with a cheery hello, I’m hoping they won’t tell us off. In fact, they were great, reminding us we are on council land, and can’t stay longer than a week. We get an official notice to say we must leave in seven days time, but we’re welcome until then. Phew! We reassure them we will leave no trace and be gone by then, we’ve a ferry booked! And off they go. Ian is always so calm in situations like this, I’m a mess inside as I’m a rubbish rebel, but it’s fine, we can stay, the council man says so.
As the weather clears we explore more, finding the free public footpath directly beside the paid entrance footpath, we get another great view of the Henge (although probably not as good as the one we had with our morning coffee) and then head over the road to the barrows in the field opposite. It always amazes me how people just follow the main path, walk as short a distance as possible and don’t explore, it’s just one field over, maybe 15 mins in total to get there, have a look and walk back, but very few venture across the road. The area surrounding Stonehenge is maintained and owned by The National Trust, and is all free to explore, but to visit the stones officially, to get to walk round, but not touch them you need to pay English Heritage. I find that odd, it isn’t a comment on the charities, just the absurdity that one manages the landscape for miles, the other gets the income of the attraction that brings people in.
Having stayed a few days, the loo issue arises again. Only this time it’s where to empty it, we haven’t used harmful chemicals, but you can’t just empty it anywhere. We take a trip, pop the cassette into a big blue bag and it’s my job to confidently walk to the disposal point, empty it responsibly, and return the cassette to the van. It’s done, but it feels furtive. We can stay a few more days. We had no intention of staying more than a night or two, but there is a special feeling about Stonehenge. You can feel its soul, space, and serenity. The A303 may be close, but it's a million miles away to us.
If you haven’t ‘met’ Agy you may be interested to know a bit about her. She a Burstner, on a Fiat Ducatto base, about 6M long and we love her, she’s perfect for us. We have a fixed bed at the back above the garage storage space, a shower, loo, fridge, 2-burner hob and a sofa. Her cab chairs spin round to give us a 4-seater dining area and she’s tall enough to comfortably stand up in, she has heating and hot and cold water available, so an all year round van. Generally we manage to dance around each other in her quite well, but we do occasionally get a few bruises!
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