Stonehenge in Esperance

We set out late this morning – seems we are finally getting used to WA time and had a decent sleep in.

We took Chip down the beach for a good run round first with his balls and got him exhausted and filthy in the process, then set out for Esperance's own version of Stonehenge. 

While there we found out from talking to the owner that there are a number of  replica ‘henges’ around the world…here are a few:

This one is ‘Stonehenge Aotearoa’ found in the Wairarapa in New Zealand (and we didn’t even know!)

This one appears in a farmers field opposite the real Stonehenge each summer – aptly named ‘Hayhenge’

and this one is ‘Carhenge’ found in Nebraska USA!!!

Now the story behind Esperance Stonehenge is that it was quarried from granite found in Esperance and was commissioned originally to go to the Margaret River area in WA, however the guy that commissioned it went broke – so the quarry was left with a bunch of huge stones!  The couple that live across the road from the quarry were aware of this and decided to take the stones on themself and after looking around where to put them decided to put them in their own paddock on their farm.

The granite stones are a complete replica to scale of the original “Stonehenge” in the UK.  The 10 Trilithon stones in a horseshoe pattern weigh between 38 -55 tonnes each.  Standing with the 18 tonne lintel to a height of 7.7 metres.  Inside the Trilithon horseshoe stands another horseshoe of 19 blue stones.  The Trilithon stones are surrounded by a circle of 30 Sarsen Stones weighing 28 tonnes each and standing almost 5 metres high including the 7 tonne lintels on top.  Standing between the Sarsen and the Trilithon stones is a full circle of 40 smaller stones.  The altar stone lies in front of the tallest Trilithon stones.  The structure is aligned with the summer solstice-sunrise in the southern hemisphere- Esperance WA. 
The station stones are positioned on this line to allow the suns rays to pass through to the altar.

Although we went to Stonehenge in the UK earlier this year we found this experience to be much more enjoyable as you could actually walk out, around, touch the stones etc – and we had them all to ourselves while we were there! 

Here are my photos – I took heaps and couldn’t decide which ones to put on here, so have put them all on as an online album! Click on the link 'view full album' to see all the photos!

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