After watching a film my youngest son said that he wanted to go and see Stonehenge, I said he had been when he was little; but he couldn’t remember this. As the next day was my day off and he was on half term I said we could go tomorrow if he wanted to. After some discussion and wanting his Dad to come too we decided to go on the Saturday morning.
We got up at 5am to set off so we could watch the sun rise when we got there. It took us about two and a half hours from our house in Kent and we arrived just as the sun was rising (perfect timing).
We parked in the road at Woodhenge; tip – there were several camper vans and cars that had used this as a place to spend the night so if you’re looking to park up for the night this would be a good spot. There is no charge for parking.
We started our walk through national trust ground at The Cuckoo Stone towards Stonehenge. It was a cold but beautiful morning with a pretty ground frost. We always use paper OS maps and the OS mobile app they are really great for finding routes, recording routes and making sure your on track whilst you’re exploring.
The walk took us to King Barrow Ridge; there were lots of National Trust information boards along the way to read about the area. The last stretch of the walk took us up The Avenue to Stonehenge.
You will not be able to get in to the stones as this is an English Heritage site and you will need to get tickets from the visitor centre. There were two reasons that we didn’t get tickets, 1. We wanted to get there early before others were there to see the site in the morning sun peacefully and the site is not open at this time. 2. The ticket would have cost us £50, we would have become members instead as this would have only been another £50. We have previously taken the children when we were members. The last couple of years we have not purchased a membership for either English Heritage or National Trust as the places we visit we have not needed to. I would say memberships are fantastic value we have 5 children and knowing that wherever we were (when they younger) we could find a local property to go and explore.
There was only one other family at the fence and an English Heritage employee watching from the side when we reached Stonehenge. It was lovely just what we had wanted and after some chatting and lots of pictures we started our walk back. The walk was approximately 7.6km and took us 1 hour 44 minutes, this was with stopping and reading the information boards, taking lots of pictures and walking at a leisurely pace. I would say that the route was easy walking, suitable for families and pushchair accessible (all gates opened fully so you can easily get pushchairs through). There are animals about in some of the fields; mainly cows and sheep and there are clear signs explaining no dogs. I am sure that there are alternate ways that you can take dogs but I would imagine they will be slightly longer and we had no need to use a route suitable for dogs.
I would defiantly recommend this walk and going for the early start, it was a lovely morning with my family.
My Jones Life 