Top Travel Adventures continued

Mike read my last post and helpfully pointed out to me that while my list was a good one, I'd forgotten to add photos plus I'd left off some of his favorite adventures. So the two of us put our heads together and started listing off all the crazy things I forgot to write about last time, and we're working on adding in some photos. I can see that our blog is slowly being transformed into our post hoc travel log! Ah well, it could be worse I suppose. Plus it could come in handy for telling stories to the grandchildren in about fifty years...

Top Travel Adventures continued...

11. Spotting a leopard at a water hole in Etosha National Park. These water holes are amazing: you and about forty other tourists just hang out there all night long, hoping to see something cool. Mostly you end up lounging around for hours, trying to find a comfortable way to sit on rocks. Plus you can't talk because it scares away the animals. So it can get pretty boring pretty fast. But you tough it out because every so often, you see something amazing! Our patience paid off one night when we saw a couple of springbok creep towards the water hole to drink. A few meters off, we could see some large carnivorous animal stalking them, but we weren't sure what it was. I thought it was a small lion, but once it got closer we saw it was a leopard. We were thrilled! It is extremely rare to see a leopard, and Mike especially was grateful to have the chance (I'd seen two on my last trip to Etosha three years ago .... how lucky am I?!?). Anyway, it got even better, because the leopard started creeping towards the springbok and tried to pounce on one! (Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of this because it was the middle of the night.) The springbok escaped easily though. Then some elephants arrived, and the leopard was not about to mess with them so it hid behind some rocks and bushes until the elephants had had their fill. Once they'd left, the leopard crept back to the water for a quick drink, then disappeared back into the night...

12. Seeing Stonehenge. Whenever I told my British friends how much Mike and I wanted to visit Stonehenge, they'd always give me the most quizzical looks: why would we want to visit that? Apparently Brits, at least the ones I've befriended, don't think Stonehenge is all that remarkable... "it's just a bunch of rocks," they always said. So my expectations were definitely lowered, but we figured we'd head out there anyway. We stopped in Salisbury on the way and saw a gorgeous cathedral there. I think it may have the highest steeple in all of Britain. In fact, it was so high, I was too frightened to go all the way to the top! Well, not exactly - I went all the way to the top but I refused to go outside and walk around on the little balcony at the top, which judging from Mike's description of its extreme narrowness proved to be the right decision! Anyway, after that we drove out to Stonehenge and spent a few rushed minutes walking around (somehow we miscalculated the time and it was just about to close). I can't imagine what those Brits are on about: I thought it was incredible! There was a storm brewing over the plain at the time, and the whole atmosphere was so grey and misty and surreal, and even though it's just a "pile of rocks" ... well, I'm hard-pressed to think of a more impressive pile! We had a great time...