Mama With Wanderlust

Today we saw Stonehenge.  My tips would be make reservations ahead of time and go early to avoid long lines.  You go to the museum and they have a shuttle that takes you there.  You are no longer able to go up to the stones (unless you make early morning reservations ahead of time), they are roped off because if vandalism and they don’t want millions of people stomping on the grounds.

These stones are massive and of course antiquitist have their theories on what it is about or how they got the stones here.  The Blue Stones come from far away in Wales and there are the massive Sarsan stones.

The place where Stonehenge is built has been a sacred place for many groups of people for thousands of years.  The leyline energies are powerful here.  Stonehenge has undergone changes based on the people who came here over the years.  They think they know of at least 3. When you get into the mathematics of Stonehenge it really coordinates with the lunar cycle and eclipses although the National Trust talks a lot about this site being related to the sun.

There is a museum that depicts how they would guess that they moved the Blue Stone from Wales.

On the tray in the cafe, this interesting tidbit was printed on:

Could you imagine if someone else bought it and just disposed of it?

Gretchen trying out one of the beds that they are guessing the people slept on who were working on building Stonehenge.

 

Our family visited the South Bodmin Moor which has a vast and wild landscape in search of the Hurlers Stone Circle located in the quaint town of Minions, England.  A moor can be described as having heather, gorse, exposed rock, rough grassland, and has higher elevation but not mountainous.  We of course loved seeing all the sheep grazing on the moor.

A sweet lamb

A short walk from the parking lot, will get you to the Hurlers Stone Circle.  There are 3 stone circles and the middle one is slightly elliptical.  The Michael and Mary leyline are said to converge here in the center Circle.

Some of the stones

From here you can walk on to the Cheesewring rock formation which is a natural geological formation.  It is a rock outcrop of granite slabs formed by weathering.

We all liked climbing around this area.

For our family, the moor was such a wild landscape and we really enjoyed walking around it.  The parking lot provides some direction to where and how to access the circles and the Cheesewring.  There is an interesting but small informational building in an old mining engineer building.  Public restrooms are available in the small town, but you do need your 20 pence coin to gain access to them.

We were guided around the sacred sites of Avebury by Maria Wheatley who is a second generation dowser, author, and leader of Druid ceremonies.  Since we all enjoy walking, with the exception of Hanna when it is too hot out, we decided to go by foot to all the sites.

We met in front of the Henge Shop which has stones, jewelry, books, and more.  We walked past Silbury Hill which the Neolithic people created to represent Earth, a fecund Gaia.  They used layers of chalk to build up this hill and when excavated there was living moss at the very center of it.

Silbury Hill

Maria explained that she believes that the sacred sites represented the solar system as viewed in this document.

Each area has a sacred site related to the planets on it.  The famous Stonehenge is supposed to be Saturn.  Avebury’ circles depict the sun and the moon.

This picture depicts what Avebury supposedly looked like thousands of years ago drawn by William Stukeley.

We made our way to the West Kennet Long Barrow which is a Neolithic site.  Maria has a theory that the engolated head people who were in power and ruled this area were eventually murdered and buried here by the round head people.

 

Maria showed us how to dowse inside here.

After leaving the Barrow, we walked over the hill through the West Kennet Avenue.  The Michael leyline energy follows this path.

Rock that looks like a face

West Kennet Avenue

Maria showed us one stone that was used prior to coming to the avenue for sharpening and polishing flint.

You can see the marks were the people scraped the flint against.  Scholars are not certain what the avenue represents in regards to Avebury, could be the route that people took to get to the circle stones.

The southern circle in Avebury represents the sun, which is the male energy and the northern circle represents the moon which is the feminine energy.

The entry stones to the southern circle have large entry stones.  There is a seat that you can sit on, called the Devil’s Chair that you are able to view the summer solstice sun from.

The moon circle, the northern circle, has the largest stone in England within the circle.  The entry stone on the right in this picture below lines up exactly with the arc of the moon every 18.6 years (called a lunar stand still).

I’m just so amazed how much people from thousands of years ago were able to understand astronomy and move these massive rock formations.

It is rumored that the stone pictured below on a full moon, allows you to put your ear close to the heart and your future love will be whispered to you.

One of the girl’s highlights from the day is that they were finally able to pet a sheep.

There was so much that Maria taught us, this is only a snippet.  She goes into great detail and I thoroughly enjoyed her tour of Avebury.  If this is your thing, I totally recommend her.  She is a researcher who admitted that she will humbly accept if her theories are disproved.  She went into so much more detail on how her theories were proven that only she can do justice to explain them via a tour or by purchasing her books to further explain.  We learned so much from her and 3 of us want to read her books to learn more from her.  Hanna was more interested in when it was time for her to get ice cream.

To understand the significance of Minack Theater, one must first know Rowena Cade.  I see her spirit and determination in my older daughter, Gretchen.  After WWI, Rowena and her widowed mother moved to Portucono from Cheltenham.  She found this piece of land and bought it for £100.

The children and adults of the village wanted to put on an open air production of “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” in 1929 and Ms. Cade generously allowed them to use her property (which was basically her lawn overlooking the ocean) and helped sew the costumes for this production.  It was so successful that they put on the production again the following summer.  This inspired Rowena, at 38 years old, to create a theater cliff side to the ocean which is no small feat.

 

This determined woman along with her gardener Billy Rawlings undertook this huge project making it what it is today.

They had to carry up bags and bags of sand from the beach to make the cement.  In order to do this, they first had to create steps going down to the beach to obtain the sand.  She would use the tip of a screwdriver to create Celtic drawings before the cement set in order to make it look like the stage had been there for a long time.

This slight, tough woman hauled up 12 15-foot pieces of lumber from a ship wreck to  use for building the theater.  The climb is no joke.

The Porthcurno Beach was used during WWII as secret cable telegraph site, as well as during WWI.  There was barbed wire set up in the beach as well as being guarded and it has been said the Rowena would scramble underneath it to collect sand for the theater.

A view from the beach up to the theater, this puts the building of the theater to an even greater perspective.

 

This is a great place to visit and while we were there a fantastic character actor was portraying Billy Rawlings and telling stories of this magical place.  He truly had the gift of storytelling.

Thanks Kate and Jacks for taking us to this magical place.

We made our home base in Tintagel while staying in Cornwall because of the ruins of Tintagel Castle.  Our first full day in England we explored this place.  Richard, Earl of Cornwall, built this castle here during the 1230’s quite possibly because it supposedly where the legendary King Arthur was conceived.

Entrance to the Castle

Merlin’s Cave…Only Accessible During Low Tide

Parts of the Castle Ruins

Views from the Coastal Path

Sculpture of Gallos-the Cornish equivalent of power

Lucky for me, Brad enjoys driving while we are in England. What we have learned so far….

Roads that start with M=Major Roads with Plenty of Space

Roads that start with A=Arterial Roads, Usually Two Way Traffic With Plenty of Space

Roads that start with B=Roads that Supposedly Fits Two Cars and Are Lined with Hedges and You Will at Some Point Be Shoved Up Against the Hedges While a Massive Lorry Is Coming Straight at You and There Will Certainly Be Some Choice Words Said/Yelled/Gasped Inside the Car While Holding on for Dear Life 😂

Traffic Jam #1

Traffic Jam #2

Bedruthan Steps is a great place to visit with grand views of the granite pillars that have been carved out over thousands of years from the wind and waves.

It can be a bit precarious walking along the steep edges with children, but after lots of prompting to steer clear of the edge the views are amazing.  Part of the coastal path goes through grazing field for sheep, which is always a plus for us.

Our family likes a bit of adventure so there is one bay that if you follow the sheep’s path down the edge of the bay, you can access a private beach that has a cave.  You do have to climb over some rock before accessing the beach, so you need to be okay with that before venturing off.  Climbing back up was a bit easier than going down.

Once on the beach during low tide, we got to see jellyfish on the sea floor as well as explore the cave.

Another pretty video of the gorgeous area.

We chose to walk the coastal path first before climbing down the 120 step climb to the beach.  Being a midwesterner, we are not as used to paying attention to the high and low tide times.  Make sure you do because once high tide starts coming back in, it can come in quickly.  In this picture you may be able to see the difference in the tide levels.

There is a fantastic tea garden at the National Trust Visitor’s Center.  While enjoying our cream tea, we watched a seagull steal a leftover clotted cream AND the ceramic ramekin off of a table once the patrons left the table.  The seagulls along the coast are very skilled in getting what they want.

Can not recommend this place enough!  We spent a good 5 hours here.

 

We were lucky enough to have our friends Kate and Jacks met up with us for a few days in Cornwall. Kate and I worked together at a camp just outside of Ely, MN for a couple of summers about 18 years ago. Kate and Jacks live just outside of Bristol and made the trek down to met up with us.  When I saw Kate a couple of years ago, she and her friends were talking about how great Cornwall is and she was the inspiration for this portion of the trip. They planned a really fabulous day for us all and the weather cooperated perfectly.

Kate and Jacks

We started out at Polzeath Beach which is well known for surfers and body boarders.  When Prince William and Prince Harry were younger, they would have surfing lessons here.  One of the cool things for our family is that we got to park on the beach, not at all typical for us.  We walked on the Coastal Path towards Padstow.  There were stunning views of the Atlantic along the entire way.

The girls really enjoyed getting down onto the beach and walking in the water. The bird watching is really great here, we saw a kestrel riding the airwaves.

We wouldn’t have known about this if not for Kate and Jacks, but there is a ferry you can take to get across the estuary to Padstow, so that saved us about two hours and it was fun.

Padstow is a charming fishing village that is a foodie destination. Rick Stein has a lot of restaurants here as well as a cookery school.

Padstow

In Padstow we walked around, ate Cornish Pasties, and rented bikes so that we could bike to Wadebridge. The bike trail goes on even further (into Bodmin) and would highly recommend making a day out of this if biking is your thing. You can even rent tag-a-long bikes for younger kids as well as Burleys and baskets if you have your dog along.  The trail goes along side above the estuary and at low tide there are boats resting on the exposed sandy bottom.  In Wadebridge there are shops you can visit or a great place to grab a snack. Back in Padstow after biking, Gretchen had her English Cream Tea and some of us enjoyed a pint.  The Cornish way of enjoying Cream Tea is to first spread the jam than the clotted cream.  In Devon, you first spread the clotted cream, than the strawberry jam.  Of course there is a big debate about which way is the right way to do this.

We took the ferry back across and it was getting to be high tide.  When we walked towards Padstow we were walking on the seabed, now it was filling with water so we had to walk higher up.  You really need to pay attention to high and low tide times.

When we arrived back at Polzeath Beach we braved a dip in the water.   We had to make it a quick one because there was a red flag and the undertow was really strong.  Hanna needed to warm up with a hot drink. Most people, almost everyone, wear wet suits to stay warm but we didn’t have them.  You can rent them but we were too late.

This was such a perfect day and would recommend this area and activities to those who enjoy the outdoors.

Today for a late lunch we went to the Boscastle Farm Shop.  It is a fantastic place to visit for anyone, especially families.  There is a play area for kids to get their wiggles out while parents can relax.  Dogs are welcome here as well, this area is extremely dog friendly.

Some of the animals at the farm

From the farm, you can access the Coastal Hiking Pathway. We took this to Beeny Cliff. Really dramatic, steep views.

Hike to Beeny Cliff

I taught Hanna the tradition of the ‘kissing gates’.

She thought this was really cool.

 

Our Crew – Myself, Brad, Ryan, Kim, Kimberly, and Bryan in Lake City, MN

A big part of our upcoming trip will be sailing in the Adriatic Sea out of Trojir-Split, Croatia.  Kim and Ryan obtained their International Sailing Certification last Fall and took the winter to study for their written portion of the certification.  We have been ‘sailing’ with the Kim and Ryan since 2002. Sailing is in quotations because that usually meant, we did whatever they told us to do without question and I could not sail to save my life.  Because we will have the 6 of us adults and 6 children on this sailing adventure, we needed some serious training and had a gorgeous day to do so.

We started by learning how to tie knots and how to secure the boat.

Kim Showing Us How to Secure the Rope on the Cleat

 Kim and Ryan Showing Us How to Hold the Boat

Ryan Showing How to Tie a Clove Knot

Kimberly, Bryan, and Brad Getting Ready to Secure the Boat Once in Port; Myself Learning to Hold the Boat

Kim Instructing Us How to Let Out the Main Sail

We practiced Man Overboard Drills which was really important for us to do.  It was so good that we had the discussion of what to do in case this happens and that we practiced this drill a few times.  We all agreed to run this drill once in Croatia so we can help the kiddos remain calm in the water if they do go overboard and so that we all know what to do.  The person who first sees the person go overboard yells out “Man Overboard” and their only job is to be the spotter of that person in the water.  At this point, the kids will all go below deck so that we can have a lesser amount of people above deck to limit the chaos.  The rest of the adults will help the captain watch out for other boats and help direct him/her to the man overboard.  There is a hook with a long arm that the person can grab on to once we are close to them and that will help guide them to the stern of the boat to get back on.

We learned a ton and Kim and Ryan did a GREAT job of instructing us.