We had two walks yesterday, the first near Danebury was mainly downhill to the village of Longstock where we successfully found a church micro (geocache). Although the cache was hidden in a quiet small country lane we got a few odd looks from a man digging in his allotment opposite as we searched under an ivy covered fence for the small container. Whilst searching, a delivery van slowly went by and came back again looking for an address then as if that wasn't enough a skip lorry passed - they were probably the only things to go along this no through lane all day and it meant using our best stealth skills - luckily we've had a lot of practice!
Violets
Glory of the Snow.
At the car park there is a large mound of soil that must have been dumped ages ago and growing all over it were violets, primroses and little blue flowers that took us a while to identify. We searched through wild flower books and found nothing then Mr C in a light bulb moment realised it may not be a wild flower at all, in fact it's not it's called Glory of the Snow which is a garden plant, a spring flowering bulb. It was a very pretty plant, something I'd quite like in the garden at some stage.
Along Church Lane towards Longstock.
Masses of primroses in the churchyard.
St Mary's Church, Longstock.
Another view on the way back, a tractor was crop spraying in a field on the left, and it smelt awful, so it looks lovely but just imagine a bad smell and you're there!
It was back to the cold wind today, so I was well rugged up in scarf and gloves again.
After a bit of lunch we drove a mile or so up the road to Danebury hill where there is an Iron Age Hill Fort. The fort is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Site of Special Scientific Interest, it was constructed on the summit of the hill 2500 years ago and occupied for 400 years by a tribe of at least 300 people. There were quite a few dog walkers about yesterday but luckily there was no sign of an Iron Age Tribe!!!! However there are Exmoor ponies and Manx Loaghtan sheep, which are old breeds similar to those that would have been on the site many years ago. The sheep were fantastic, I wasn't too keen on the horns though and one looked at us particularly menacingly - or so I thought.
The view from the trig point.
There are many exposed tree roots around the bottom of the fort, weird looking?
Manx Loaghtans.
Without the set of double horns, this sheep doesn't look quite so menacing.
Exmoor ponies are Britain's oldest breed and is thought to be little changed from the original ponies that colonised Britain thousands of years ago.
On the hill fort.
We have seen this before, a beech tree with lots of hibernating snails in all of it's nooks and crannies.
We easily found the second geocache of the day and in total walked just under 5 miles, a good day.
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