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Stonehenge is draped in darkness as thousands await dawn.
Suddenly – there is light! As a ethereal sunbeam flashes through the stones...
Woah, woah, lets hold it there for a second. This is England, and it's Spring.
Stonehenge is one of Britain's greatest ancient sites, but we still don't know what it is!
What we do know is that it aligns with the sun, moon and the stars.
And that four times a year, on the equinox and solstices, it draws academics, revellers and druids.
March 20th was the Spring equinox, and we sent Nicole down to Stonehenge to see what goes on.
May there be peace in the North! (May there be peace in the North!)
I've been doing the solstices and equinoxes here at Stonehenge for about 22 or 23 years now.
It's the most powerful place we could possibly be to celebrate the equinox, really.
It's the hub, the epicentre if you like, of the whole system of ancient sacred monuments in Britain.
I'm here at Stonehenge and I've just seen the ceremony for the sunrise – it was pretty brilliant!
Well equinox actually means equal night and it means the day length and the night length are exactly the same.
Because the Earth leans over at a funny angle, in summertime we're leaning towards the sun, in winter we're leaning away.
And halfway between the two, there's equinox. On equinox, the sun rises due East.
It's a very important day if you need to generate your own calendar. You don't have radio, televisions and astronomers telling you where you are in the year.
You would've seen today, people at Stonehenge – big crowds, lots of banging of drums and calling of the courters and chanting,
and what that's really about is the recreation of an ancient tradition, and being at Stonehenge, there's a connection between you today,
standing in that place at this special time to the ancestors who have done that right back through the millennia.
“Why is the equinox so important to you?”
“Umm.. I don't know if it's really important.”
“It has a groovy vibe”
“My husband and I have been coming to Stonehenge since the 60s. We're Pagans but not sort of like Druids."
"We leave the Druids to do the words for the ceremonies.”
In ancient times, the Druids were the inheritors of a much older tradition where watching the sky and knowing when you are in the year,
and being part of the natural cycles was really, really important to the people.
We like to keep that tradition going, so even though today we have TV sets and radios and iPods and phones,
we like to keep the old wisdoms and the old traditions going. It's also important to just tune yourself into the cycles of the year, and be one with nature.
Looking eastwards, if we'd had a sunny morning this morning, we would have seen the sun rise through the Outer Saracens circle,
over the barrow that is just in front of the woods over there.
I'm on my way back to London, and I'm really tired, but it was well worth it. I hope I did a good job bringing in the summer,
as I think I need a bit of sun. I can't wait until my next adventure!
The equinox is one of only four times of the year you can visit the stone circle at Stonehenge.
But if you want to get inside at any time, then visit Stonehenge Virtual at Heritage-Key.com.
There you can explore Stonehenge throughout the ages from the comfort of your own home.
So what do you reckon? Should we have access to the stones all year round?