Including an Alien Abduction at Honeystreet
It was another lovely high level walk across to the village of Manningford Bruce and then I ran out of path and into nettles and thistles once again! It should have been easy...point north until reach canal. But a criss-cross of footpaths and non-paths led me astray, and although I cursed at the nettles, I did like the field full of piglets that I crossed. I knew I was right once I got to Swanborough Tump. I think Tump is an old dialect word for mound. The inscribed stone reads "Swanborough Tump - Swinbeorg c850. Here in the year 871 the future King Alfred the Great met his elder brother King Aethelred I on their way to fight the invading Danes and each one swore if the other died in battle the dead man's children would inherit the lands of their father King Aethelwulf." Sandals on at this point, boots in rucksack. From here it was a direct line to join the towpath of the Kennet & Avon canal that would take me all the way back into Devizes.
As I headed off, the final insult to my battered, bruised, scratched and bitten legs was being pinged with the hook from a bungee which flew off a tethered dog that leapt up at me on the way past. And then the last 6 miles back into Devizes. My final chat along the towpath was with a chap who was renovating his barge in order to make money to travel to Australia. His barge was called Solsbury Hill, which I thought was very apt as I had been singing it all week. I finished with a view of the final horse at Alton Barnes, cats in canal boats and the sunset over the water as I hobbled towards my own white horse at Devizes, my guiding beacon each night home. Trail over, job done. 94 miles covered in 5 days and I'm giving myself the day off tomorrow to visit the Canal Museum and see the gold from Stonehenge at the Wiltshire Museum. Really looking forward to seeing Pete again tomorrow. Already thinking about the Two Moors way for next spring.