James had an awesome day planned out for us. After meeting me at the train, we warmed up with some coffee at Cafe Nero and then headed out for the day. We walked the Clarendon Foot Path through both farms and beautiful forests to a little village called Pitton, which was a walk of maybe 2-3 miles there and back.
The Clarendon Foot Path is a public pathway far away from any motorway (although we did pass a few rogue vehicles, mostly coming away from the farms in the area). The path was pretty muddy but the ground was firm and once we hiked up the hill, we had a beautiful view of Salisbury with the tall cathedral in the background.
Why I'm standing like I'm about to dominate the world, I have no idea.... just ignore the pose and look at the beautiful English countryside instead.
At one point, you get to walk through a llama farm which is situated right up against the old ruins of the Clarendon House, which is basically just an old ruined hunting lodge. However, you can walk aroudn the old grounds, making sure that you don't accidentally fall into an old cellar area, and observe the old ruins.
The is the only wall remaining of the hunting house although you can still see exactly where the rooms used to be (very similar to the ruins that are left at Old Sarum). One of the odd things that we saw on this tramp of ours (we were certain suited for the trip- James had his walking hat and umbrella, I had my walking boots and a packed lunch and we were prepared for pretty much any event, including being stranded in the middle of nowhere. We even figured out that if we needed to sleep in the woods, there were plenty of pine boughs and needles to pile on top of ourselves) was inside this really gnarled old tree. James had found this on his last tramp and he showed me. Inside one of the trees was a geo-caching "package" that was filled with little trinkets and a notebook that you could sign proving that you had found the cache. We left a little message, wrapped the tupperware back up onto the camo patterned bag and hid it back inside the tree.
After leaving the hunting lodge ruins, you head into the woods, which of course you cannot do before reading the large "plinth" engraved with a very druidic poem- which I claimed was very hippie like.
After a long walk in the quiet woods where we were twice scared by pheasants (they are so loud!), saw several white-tailed deer and rabbits, we eventually arrived in Pitton, a small, rustic, quaint, idyllic (how many more synonyms can I come up with) little English village. We went up to the Silver Plough and headed inside for some drinks. The pub was incredible and so unique- there were a huge assortment of mugs hanging from the ceiling, various photos and memorabilia on the walls, Skittle Alley (where you play ten-pins) and a Snug Bar (we aren't sure what that was but couldn't investigate because there was a funeral party in there- the cheeriest funeral party we had ever seen).
We were at the Silver Plough for a good two hours or so. You may be wondering how well two people who have only really met and hung out twice coudl spent a good six hours alone together but we had an incredible time. Just talked abou pretty much everything underneath teh sun- TV, movies, books, Australian and American laws (did you know Australians technically do not have Freedom of Speech? It's implied that they do but there is no written law since they have no constitution), politics, sports, my students, hostel visitors that caused problems, really absolutely everything. It was non-stop talk and never any awkwardness. WIsh he wasn't going back home so soon.
After our afternoon at the pub, we headed back through the woods on a slightly different path. It was still really sunny and the sun shone down beautifully through the tall trees. We saw at least four deer and two of them got pretty close! Other than the two cars we saw near the farms, we didn't see a single other person and the only sounds other than our footsteps and our chatting were the sounds of the forest (and a couple of shots of a shotgun... that was worrisome). Again we stopped at the same vista point we were at earlier (where most of the from above pictures are from) and had some sandwiches since we hadn't had anything to eat all day.
Eventually we made it back to Salisbury and since I had an hour before the train, we went back to James', had some tea to warm up, chatted with his roommate Daley and watched some Top Gear. He walked me back to the station before my train and I had an easy trip back home. Tramping through the English countryside, seeing little villages, enjoying nature and getting exercise is so high on my list of things to do in England and it was so nice to enjoy it with a friend.
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