AUSTRALIA WILL GET ITS OWN STONEHENGE

An ancient temple, observatory or druids’ shrine. All these definitions were once used to describe Stonehenge. This Neolithic “structure” has become very popular among tourists and images of it are known world wide. An Australian entrepreneur decided that his country should also have such a monolithic structure.

Mr. Ross Smith said he had the money, will and time to build an Australian Stonehenge and so he started with the construction. The new Stonehenge will be known as "the Henge" and its construction will cost approximately U.S. $1.26 million. It will span some 33 meters. The 101 granite stones will be quarried from Esperance on the southwest Australian coast. In fact a team already works on getting the stones for five months now.

The stones will be 8 meter tall and will weigh 6 tones. They will be transported to Mr. Smith’s land in the Margaret River region of Western Australia by multiple wheeled trailers. Mr. Smith sees the construction as a business operation and he hopes that the monolith will lure some 200,000 or 300,000 tourists to the region per year.

The Henge will be fully accessible for tourists, unlike its older brother in the UK. The monolith will be available for hire for weddings and other events. As the Henge is an exact south hemisphere copy of Stonehenge it will be configured around the southern hemisphere"s winter and summer solstice. Mr. Smith expects the construction to be finished in November so that it will be available to the public by December 21st in time for the summer solstice.

In the past a number of Stonehenge replicas were constructed around the world. There are Stonehenges made out of cars, or build from concrete. In Texas they have a Stonehenge made from an adobe-like material. Nevertheless, the Henge will be probably the most accurate copy of the original.