Day 3: The day a jacket potato changed my life.

We awoke to a sunny day three, and headed downstairs for our included breakfast at The Old Mill. As usual, the spread was continental with a full english. Adelaide kindly donated her black pudding over to me, and to be honest I didn't think it was too bad. It wasn't until we'd polished off our plates that the lady serving us told us we could have mixed and matched the breakfast as we wished. The breakfast room at the Old Mill had a glass viewing portal down into the flowing water beneath the building which was pretty cool.

Just water under the... mill

Today we were headed north to the Cotswolds with a pit stop at Stonehenge en route. When booking tickets to Stonehenge, however, you need to specify a time to go, which we had over-estimated at 11am, thus had some time to kill before we needed to hit the road.

Departing Salisbury in small village 'peak-hour', we headed back through Downton to the New Forest to explore the woods in more detail. Adelaide got to take some more pictures of the wildlife and we pulled over at a carpark in the northern end of the park, got out and started wandering. There was a group of a few ponies sunning themselves in the morning light, and we circled down past them to a cluster of trees where we spotted mistletoe.

I just found a big stick!

We headed back towards the main path (in Australian terms more like a firetrail/access trail) and headed into a wooded area pursued by some more walkers and their dogs who loved the open space. The woods were quite bare now that it was winter, and the area was coated in orange leaves but it was peaceful nonetheless.

After a short 30 minute drive from New Forest through Salisbury and a handful of villages, we arrived at Stonehenge. Parking and the visitor centre at Stonehenge is around a mile away from the actual site, and after some perusing through the history of it at the visitor centre, Addy and I opted to walk along the road up to Stonehenge (there were shuttle buses running too but perhaps we should walk some of our carbs off!). Adelaide was surprised by the size of Stonehenge (Quote: It was good).

Adelaide and I settled in for a two hour drive from Stonehenge to Burton-on-the-water in the Cotswolds. While most of the drive was on the highways, the last half hour or so took us on tight country backroads, where we eventually got held up behind a tractor with a monstrous load of hay bales. His load would progressively shrink as every low hanging tree would scrap a bit off so we had to keep our distance!

Burton-on-the-water was our lunch stop. Getting into the festive spirit, the town has Christmas decorations up including a Christmas Tree in the middle of the main stream that ran through it. We had a stroll through town before we stopped off at the Kingsbridge Inn, where we both had significant culinary discoveries. For Adelaide, it was BBQ Pulled Pork and cheese jacket potato, and for me, it was discovering a 'biscuit beer' I had tasted many years ago but not caught the name of (Brakspeare Bitter). In all, it was a good lunch.

The beer in question

The potato in question

With light fading, we left Burton and made our way towards Shipton-Under-Wychwood for our next night's lodging. It was another short drive but the country roads (Take me home) always keep it interesting. Adelaide had chosen the Wychwood Inn as our accommodation but was disappointed as there was no real Wychwood forest nearby. The hotel however had the traditional styling outside but very modern amenities inside.

We spent what light we had left exploring the sleepy village, and stopped off at The Shaven Crown for a pint. The pub and hotel was built into an old farm house which used to be run by the local monks. The monks had moved on, but in their place was a lovely couple and their pub dog which Adelaide befriended.

We retired back to the Wychwood Inn for dinner where we both had burgers with exceptional slaw.

Cheers!
D+A