Lions and horses, the inhospitable plain, and the kindness of strangers in prehistoric places

I have reached Avebury, another county, another soil, another story. The moon is out, a little misty, and I can still hear the helicopters.

Glastonbury feels like a long time ago now, but it's only been five days. On leaving Glastonbury my dad decided to walk the first half of the day with me, across more flat levels and the longest straightest road probably of the whole walk, with egrets rising startlingly white out of the black mud. The Tor behind us didn't seem to be getting any smaller at all - a landscape in which nothing seemed to move. And yet Wells Cathedral came into view and I waved what I thought was a last goodbye to the Tor, only for it to appear again hours later. These past few days I have felt a little like a pilgrim, passing through sacred and ancient sites, sometimes alone, sometimes with others all coming for their different reasons, sometimes disappearing into crowds of shoppers, and suddenly feeling self conscious, and other times fitting in, being understood without having to explain. And all the while not quite understanding how pilgrimage really fits with me, and whether I am in the right frame of mind for it.

Wells Cathedral has a breathtaking central arch/oval pattern, which I had never seen before. In front of this musicians were gathering for a rehearsal for the evening concert, in front of rows of seating for an anticipated large choir. The percussionist was running through some tricky xylophone passages when a tour guide asked her if it was necessary for her to do that. The moral of that story is don't ask that question of someone who has a lot of big sticks. She won. And her sounds bounced around the vast walls, with the hustle of a gathering orchestra.

We bid goodbye outside in the cathedral green and I was alone again, with a painful knee. These things are often magnified when you are alone.

The following day though, Palm Sunday, I popped into a church in Chantry on the way to Warminster, intending to have a look around as their service had finished. They were all still gathered at the back of the church huddled round a table in their big coats, a plate of biscuits in the middle, and a lady making sure they all had coffee. They introduced themselves as 'specimens of Anglicanism', to which I responded 'so am I'. The lady immediately made sure I had coffee too and after they discovered where from and to where I was walking they had a whip-round. And I just went in to have a look.

Not long after that I got disoriented in a solar farm, the Danger of Death signs coming thick and fast under a huge network of pylons and no path. It turns out it was bigger than the map said it was. And I got out.

I passed into Wiltshire, my fourth county, through the back road into Longleat Park. It turns out you can walk in and out the other side with no questions asked. The huge bronze lion at the front of the house dwarfed the visitors, suddenly a huge number of people and sea of cars.

As I arrived at the campsite that evening and turned my phone on I realised I had been functioning an hour behind everyone else all day. I don't think that's happened to me before.

Out of Warminster the following day through the huge military housing estate, I ascended steeply onto Salisbury Plain, onto the Imber Range Perimeter Path. I opted for this path being uncertain about where exactly I could go, having never walked across Salisbury Plain before. The first line of hills, lining this edge of the plain above Warminster, were high and strangely shaped, a mixture of human shaping and natural sculpting, forts and barrows. And all around in the morning sun the views stretched for miles, back to my campsite, out north into the high plain. As I walked further into the plain, the presence of the military became more and more evident, and then overwhelming. I realised that in other vast high landscapes my heart becomes a little more spacious, more free. In this high landscape I felt unwelcome, fearful, suspicious, paranoid. I had the same helicopter circling over me all day. I was on a permitted path and always on the right side of the 'military firing range - keep out' signs. The red flags were flying, and the sky clouded over, chilling the air. Two massive low flying bombers passed directly overhead, circling back a further three times. Amidst all the do not signs and bye law signs there was even a macabre pictorial explanation of what happens if you stand on a land mine, complete with a little figure with only one and a half legs. Farms, despite all of this, dot the landscape, with sheep and cows and fertile fields, presumably the animals understanding what keep out means. I passed a settlement with no name on the map, but big houses in the distance.

I camped that night at Tilshead, the village in the heart of the plain, a besieged little place with the A360 thundering through it, and the military dictating how and where they can come and go. I got the sense of a resignation to it all. In the pub that evening I met the kindest of people. I went in to get warm and to write, with a beer. I got warm, with beer, but we were talking so much no writing got done. They were so encouraging about the walk, contributing to the fundraising, and putting me on the pub Facebook page. It is incredible how many people resonate with the charity, for many different reasons, and particularly when it's not an easy or attractive subject. And all the while the chap in the corner was trying to watch Coronation Street and hadn't banked on a strange walker coming in. I felt so welcome in that place in the midst of the paradoxical landscape.

The following day I attempted to leave Tilshead via a permissive bridleway that the Coronation Street fan had told me he drove through every day, in spite of it going right through the middle of a danger area. It is marked on the map as a right of way, and he said the flags are always flying, so I headed for Westdown Camp in a wet, windy misty morning. Suddenly it was a hive of activity, military vehicles everywhere. I went to ask the chap at the barbed wired checkpoint and he said on no account could I walk through there today. He sent me back to the Imber range path to continue north that way, and as I did, a huge explosion with lingering black smoke spattered the horizon. My leanings towards pacifism were getting stronger every minute. I felt exposed and vulnerable even though I was on the 'safe' path. There is no place for shelter. I had my luminous green rain cover on my rucksack, mostly for the rain, but also just to let anyone whose firearm might have been pointing in the wrong direction that I was there. I found an early exit route into the delightful village of Market Lavington, when I felt the plain had had enough of me and me of it. It's not that it's not beautiful in its own wild and ancient way, and it's not empty - it's fertile and full of life in so many ways, with buzzards and egrets, skylarks and even a red kite. And yet it feels that too much has been done to this land to make it fenced off, unsettlingly empty, bare, threatening. I was glad to leave it, and sad for the creatures - I think they know, and more than we know.

Today the Urchfont morning dawned wet and cold, the rain set in to stay. With wet tent packed up I headed north to the Pewsey Down, a ridge of sweeping round hills beyond which lay Avebury and prehistoric presences in chalk and stone. It was wild and windy on the top, and I was reluctant in the weather and the unfamiliar landscape. It turned out to be wonderful, in spite of the weather and it was very exciting to walk directly above the ears of a huge white horse. Over the ridge the strange tump of Silbury Hill came into view below and it stopped raining. The Ridgeway route for tomorrow framed the view, and Avebury welcomed me quietly and gently, the vast ancient stones encircling the village having seen more than you or I could ever imagine. I met an actor in the pub sheltering from the sudden hail shower. He had a rucksack and waterproofs on - the first long distance walker I've met. He was just starting out from Avebury and seemed to be set to retrace some of my steps to Cornwall, and wasn't feeling encouraged by the hail. I gave him some tobacco and then we went and touched the stones together, neither of us quite sure what one was supposed to do. We put our ears to another stone and agreed we couldn't quite hear anything apart from the traffic from the road (if any place needs a bypass, surely Avebury deserves it) but we both said a sort of prayer/hope/blessing on each others journeys to come. And off he went.

I visited the church and played their piano. It was full of messages of visitors being kept an eye out for but in a completely different way. There was a prayer tree with thousands of prayers hung on it, lists of numbers for people to call in times of crisis, a box of clothing and a box of food for travellers who have arrived with nothing and nowhere to go, and all intermingled with ancient architecture and medieval artefacts.

I can't quite believe I've got this far. I wasn't sure it was possible and in a way I'm still not. So, here are a few statistics ...

Number of miles walked: 248 although it's probably closer to 260/270. I was a bit rushed in my route planning and weirdly mis-measured a lot of distances.

Number of counties: 4

Number of maps used: 14

Number of pianos played: 6

Number of pubs visited: 15

Number of days walked: 18

Number of hours walked in rain: lost count

Number of hours walked in sun: more than I was expecting.

Number of hailstorms: 2

Number of snowflakes in my eyelashes: too many.

Number of blisters: 0

Number of poorly knees: 1

Number of lip balms used: 1 and a half