After spending a weekend in Avebury participating in a walking gift experience day, Sharon Madeley wrote this review of her trip.
I wanted to write this review to tell everybody how great my recent trip to Avebury was. I hadn’t heard of the place, until a friend returned from her visit and went on and on about how lovely it was. Avebury is a village in Wiltshire, rich in history and it is best known for its stone circles. I am intrigued by anything like that and have visited Stone Henge many times, so as soon as I heard this, I dropped some massive hints to my husband about wanting to go.
Fortunately for me, Paul does listen to me and lo and behold, I received a walking gift experience for my birthday in… Avebury! Bless him, it appears he did read the note I left on the fridge, which said: “I want to go to Avebury”. So, non subtle hints were taken on board and we packed our bags one weekend and off we went.
On the first day we met with our guide, who introduced herself as Rachel and she explained what we could expect and asked our group if anybody wanted to see anything specific.
The duration of our first walk was just under six hours, although you do get to stop for a drink and bite to eat. There were seven of us in our group and everyone was lovely. Both Paul and I made some firm friends during the trip and we have arranged to meet up again next year.
The first walk we took was called the Pagan Pastures and was just five miles long. We got to explore some of Avebury’s countryside, as well as the stone circle and some prehistoric monuments.
Rachel was great as she was able to tell us a great deal about the history behind everything we saw, and all her stories were really interesting. We also walked across the Marlborough Downs, which was rather challenging due to the hills, I could barely feel my legs the next day!
That night we met up with our group for a meal. Rachel had told us about the Red Lion pub, which is believed to be haunted. This, of course, made me want to go, so we went there. The food was great, although rather disappointingly we didn’t see any ghosts.
Day two was spent exploring more of Avebury. We visited several World Heritage sites, such as the West Kennet Long Barrow and Windmill Hill. A few of us felt a bit jaded from the night before, as quite a lot of wine was drunk, so Rachel promised to go easy on us.
We also had a bit of rain, so we voted for a quick pit stop at a local pub to refuel, before we embarked upon a five mile walk, which took us to Silbury Hill.
We learned that it is the biggest man-made hill in Europe, sadly access is restricted, so we not able to walk far up it. It is thought that a mythical character called King Sel was buried at the bottom of the hill, but Rachel told us that years of excavations have never found anything.
Our weekend away was everything I had hoped for…and more. Not only did I get to visit Avebury and indulge myself in some Pagan history, but we also got to meet some great people. I would highly recommend booking a walking weekend in Avebury, as it is such an invigorating experience.