We headed for Snowdonia, partly because we had heard it was beautiful, but mostly because of the name. Now I know every name for every place, person, animal and abstract theological concept had to be made up by a human at some point, but of all the places we had visited Snowdonia alone sounded like it had been dreamed up by Walt Disney during a severe episode of writers block. Snowdonia ....... what sort of name is that?

I had been riding an emotional roller-coaster for the last week and a half or so and when we arrived just before dark, in the rain and I wasn't in the best mood. When I was full of energy (usually in the morning or after a couple of pints) everything was fine and we were having a ball, but when I was feeling tired or burnt out, I would question why we were blowing large wads of cash to drive around in the rain all day. The scenery in the U.K can be mind-blowing if the weather is good and after a while it is easy to comprehend the local preoccupation with the weather as it can really dictate your day and mood. The next morning the sun was out - last nights random cursing had done the job and we were blessed with fair to average weather for the rest of the trip. We travelled through Wales to Bath, but we were down on pounds so couldn't afford to do much but walk, talk, giggle and look. The next morning we headed for Brighton and called in to Stone Henge on the way. We weren't actually going to go in, but when we arrived the lure was too great.

I had already dragged the girls to a number of prehistoric site in the last 2 weeks, some were just a bunch of fallen over old stones roughly arranged in a field (as in: wow it must have taken at least two or three people to lift that one), so we had some sense of perspective when we arrived. Not much is actually known about "The Henge", most is speculation (some of it pretty wild). There is evidence to suggest it was built and most likely used consistently over more than a thousand years from around 3100 BC, making it older than the Great Pyramids in Egypt. By the time the Romans arrived, Stonehenge was already both ancient and mysterious having stood for almost 30 centuries, it's builders long dead and having left no written records. Their intent is clear though, nobody arranges rocks that weigh tons in a way that basically functions as a huge stone calendar accidentally. From what little is known, I think it's safe to say whoever or (cue twilight zone music) whatever, built it had a fairly pressing need to know what time of year it was, hinting at (depending who you believe) either; a very stable, well organised agrarian society with an understanding of the passing and cycle of seasons, bored little green/grey men or the Amazing Merlin and his Magic Wand. The freezing wind put a time limit on our hanging about (and a stop to my plans of naked pagan dancing) so we jumped back into our warm little car, once again escaping the hordes. When we arrived in Brighton we finally found out what had happened to all the young people from the rest of the country. They moved here, lured by the Pied Pipers of loud music, wild parties and other well dressed attractive young people. We dropped Cita off to her new life with the beautiful people.... the Fellowship of the Hire Car was dissolving and Emily and I would have to continue this crazy quest by ourselves.