Another GREAT weekend...continued!!

After we left Indy & Alf we headed up the motorway to a place called Basingstoke...this was so we could go visit my mate Charlie (& his Mum & Dad...Aunty Sally & Uncle Steve). On the way there we decided to check out a new walk that Mum & Dad had seen on a cool website called Driving with Dogs - this website really is brilliant if you ever go driving on motorways with your owners...it tells them (coz we can't read...yet!!) all about walks that are within 5 miles of motorway exits!!

Anyway, back to our walk...this one was off Junction 10 of the M3 & was at a place called St Catherine's Hill near Winchester. This walk was a real winner for Rio & me coz our favourite walks are anywhere with water as we just love swimming - on this walk there was water, water everywhere (plus loads & loads to drink!!). Here are a few pictures of St Catherine's Hill & the fabulous views:


The Itchen navigation canal



Apparently this is called a "Kissing Gate"...yuk...luckily
Rio didn't try to kiss me on the way through!!



This is an Iron-Age ditch...just imagine...it would have been dug by hand!

 

This lovely crown of Beech trees marks the very top of St Catherine's Hill - this was the centre of a human settlement around 3,000 years ago with a fort being built here in the 3rd century BC.



This is called a "Mismaze". It's 624 metres long & is made up of nine
nested squares cut out of the chalk in, it's thought, the 17th century.

On the North East edge of the beech copse lies the buried the remains
of a Norman Chapel that was built in the 12th century AD.

   

This is a view across the Itchen Valley toward Bushfield Camp,
which was once used as an Army barracks.

 

The Hospital of St Cross can be seen in the centre of the view.

 

In the foreground you can just see a series of ancient parallel pathways (known as 'Dongas') that criss-cross the area. These paths were formed over centuries by people walking their animals into market & from travelling between ancient sites & monuments.

 

Here you can see a view, in the distance, of Winchester

  

Believe it or not, this used to be the Winchester By-Pass!!!