Cycling: Salisbury Plain
Posted: 20 Sep 2009, 17:37
I'm making the most of this gorgeous Indian summer. I had a day off today and needed to get away from people for a bit so I put the bike in the back of the car and headed a few miles down the road to Salisbury Plain. As it's such a contrast to the last lot of photos, I thought some of you might be interested.
This area is just 7 miles south east of Bradford-on-Avon, where you saw all that lush greenery! This is very different. It's a 300 square mile high chalk plateau, almost unpopulated. The Ministry of Defence own much of it and it's the biggest military training area in the UK. When the military aren't using it, the public can, although some of the artillery ranges are permanently out of bounds. It's crisscrossed by tarmac and dirt roads and numerous tracks and bridleways. It's an ancient centre of population and there are dozens of Neolithic, Bronze and Stone Age burial mounds, Roman roads and of course Stonehenge! Some of the tracks are old drove roads which were used to drive cattle up to London.
In three hours cycling I saw three mudpluggers on motocross bikes and one man with a dog. There are 360 degree views, no traffic noise and no aircraft - except during exercises when there are a lot of aircraft and helicopters
Boscombe Down and Middle Wallop are also on the plain, of course.
That last picture is of a purpose built village where the army practise their urban warfare skills. That's out of bounds, too of course. I was a bit nervous about taking a photo in case a special forces operative leapt out of a foxhole and confiscated the camera
Ian
This area is just 7 miles south east of Bradford-on-Avon, where you saw all that lush greenery! This is very different. It's a 300 square mile high chalk plateau, almost unpopulated. The Ministry of Defence own much of it and it's the biggest military training area in the UK. When the military aren't using it, the public can, although some of the artillery ranges are permanently out of bounds. It's crisscrossed by tarmac and dirt roads and numerous tracks and bridleways. It's an ancient centre of population and there are dozens of Neolithic, Bronze and Stone Age burial mounds, Roman roads and of course Stonehenge! Some of the tracks are old drove roads which were used to drive cattle up to London.
In three hours cycling I saw three mudpluggers on motocross bikes and one man with a dog. There are 360 degree views, no traffic noise and no aircraft - except during exercises when there are a lot of aircraft and helicopters
Boscombe Down and Middle Wallop are also on the plain, of course.That last picture is of a purpose built village where the army practise their urban warfare skills. That's out of bounds, too of course. I was a bit nervous about taking a photo in case a special forces operative leapt out of a foxhole and confiscated the camera
Ian
Fortunately, there weren't any tanks about today although they have softened me up a bit. I followed a tank track for a couple of miles and the track marks in the mud had solidified. They loosened a couple of fillings before I decided to take my chances on the ridge between the tracks and hoped that there weren't any rabbit holes hidden in the grass 
