Max and Ash left Cardiff yesterday and took a train to London. They fly back to Florida Saturday afternoon. It was great spending time with them in Wales and I think they had a good time too. They wore Sooz and me out. After picking up the GS and turning in the rental car, we crashed.
We left our place in Cardiff around 10 am and rode two hours to see the Cerne Giant. It's part of the British National Trust. You can barely see it in our picture, but it is an ancient naked figure sculpted into the chalk hillside above Cerne Abbas. Standing at 180 feet tall the Cerne Giant is Britain’s largest chalk hill figure and perhaps the best known. Many theories have surrounded the giant’s identity and origins, including ancient symbol of spirituality, likeness of the Greco-Roman hero Hercules, mockery of Oliver Cromwell and fertility aid. In 2021, after extensive scientific analysis, National Trust archaeologists concluded the giant was probably first constructed in the late Saxon period, over 1,000 years ago. It's kind of taken on a life of its own.
From there we headed for lunch at Feed the Soul. It's a small health food store and restaurant. The parking lot had BMWs, Jaguars and Land Rovers, so there must be some money in the area. The food was good, but not very filling.
After lunch, we rode 6 miles to the Poachers Inn, where we had dinner, will stay the night and have breakfast in the morning before we head out to Plymouth. As soon as we parked, the owner, Nigel, came out to welcome us and show us his 2 motorcycles - a classic Triumph 900 and an old Honda 250 scrambler. He walked us into the reception area and turned us over to his wife who does all the work. It is a beautiful inn, restaurant and bar. For dessert tonight, we had the sticky toffee pudding, a British dessert consisting of a moist sponge cake, made with finely chopped dates, covered in a toffee sauce and served with a vanilla custard or vanilla ice-cream. It is considered a British classic by various culinary experts. It was delicious.
People bring their dogs everywhere. In the dining room/bar there were 5 dogs at one point. The couple seated next to us had a Dorset Olde Tyme Bulldogge named Tank. He was very well behaved and tolerated the other dogs.
There was a lot of traffic today riding from Cardiff until we got off the M5 highway. We later found out that today is the first day of their summer holiday with the kids out of school. It is England's busiest traffic day. The weather was beautiful, mid 60's and mostly sunny.
Our sticky toffee pudding dessert
looks tasty
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