Arbor Low

Probably you've never heard of Arbor Low, and nor had we until a couple of weeks ago when I stumbled on it while researching our stay in Ashford in the Water. Britain has ancient pre-Roman monuments sprinkled all over, many of them hardly known to, or visited by, tourists. They are on the edge of or inside villages, or on lonely isolated sites.

The most famous, of course, is Stonehenge, which we've visited a couple of times. It's awe inspiring and swamped by visitors. Arbor Low is nowhere near as spectacular but is in such a beautiful setting and only rarely has more than a couple of visitors at a time. Mary and I dropped in to see it at the tail end of a driving tour yesterday which coincided with exactly the right weather. To visit it, you park your car next to a farm at the end of a gravel road. Then you walk slightly uphill, past the farm buildings, dropping off the entry fee (£1 each) in an honesty box as you go. Then it's through a couple of gates, along the edge of some sheep-filled, grassy meadows, getting a bit of mud and other stuff on the boots, and there it is, where ancient Britons built it around 4-6000 years ago. Anyway you can read about it online but here's a one minute video we filmed yesterday.

Tap once for sound, twice to like. Arbor Low, a stone henge in the Peak District, England. #england #arborlow #peakdistrict #henge #prehistoric

A video posted by Mary & Kev Long (@noosatravellers) on May 24, 2016 at 5:21am PDT

Remember the rainbow trout picture from a few days ago? Yesterday was our last evening in Ashford in the Water and I was lucky enough to get some video of a feeding frenzy by the local trout. A local had befriended me (not in the Facebook sense) and offered to get some bread to crumble into the water. Some of the fish are pretty solid, as you can see in the video.

Tap once for sound, twice to like. The River Wye has a healthy population of rainbow trout, and they can be fed from the Sheepwash Bridge, in Ashford in the Water. #england #rainbowtrout #ashfordinthewater #riverwye #sheepwashbridge #trout

A video posted by Mary & Kev Long (@noosatravellers) on May 24, 2016 at 5:55am PDT

I'm writing this in Durham, where we've just arrived for two nights in an old Inn, within walking distance of the best Durham has to offer.

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Kev Long
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The technical stuff:
Our main iPad is connecting to the Internet mainly through a cellular connection provided (prepaid, 3gb for three months for £16) by the UK "Three" network. On high ground and in town environments this connection has so far proven quite good but, as in Australia, some places lack good coverage so no or poor connection. There are quite a few WiFi options available too although not always advertised. Just ask if you're unsure if available. All except two of our accommodation reservations include free WiFi which is of course the preferred method of transferring large amounts of data but I have been posting these blogs and their images sometimes using only a cellular connection either from inside our accommodation or on the roadside.

Mary's iPhone is operating using an Australian SIM card (Optus prepaid) which is roaming while in the UK and gives us the ability to make phone calls (not cheap) and send and receive SMS. It also uses WiFi, can connect directly to the Internet through the local cellular system (expensive), and use a Personal Hot Spot provided by the iPad (essentially free as the iPad connection is prepaid).