Epic Adventures.
Wow!
Doesn’t that have an adventurous, exciting ring to it?! It does, doesn’t it?
Recently I was approached by Blacks, a british outdoor and travel gear company, to inform me about their photo competition with that title.
Subcategories:
Wow!
Doesn’t that have an adventurous, exciting ring to it?! It does, doesn’t it?
Recently I was approached by Blacks, a british outdoor and travel gear company, to inform me about their photo competition with that title.
Subcategories:
- Wild
- Fast
- Panoramic
- Epic
How to interpret these terms is left to the contestants imagination, as long as the pictures are of The great Outdoors and about Nature.
Interesting!
Interesting!
 |
| The Grand Canyon sure qualifies as The Great Outdoors in my book. Together with the falls of Iguazu it’s in my top five of most beautiful things that I ever saw! |
Ofcourse I am happy that Blacks discovered my blog and that they seem to like my content and my pictures. And I am happy to take them up on their suggestion and enter this competition. But it is not gonna be easy for me.
Why not?
Why not?
Well, if there is one person on this planet who is NOT the outdoorsy, adventurous, nature type, then that’s me! I prefer my life to be slow and safe, with an emphasis on people, art, culture, cities and pets.
Having said that, I HAVE done quite some camping and backpacking in my life. And on a very, very tight budget too!
25 Years ago I camped three days in Kenia, on a safari, to spot the Big Five.
At night we slept in tents around a campfire, guarded by Masai men. The other wildlife spotters had come in small groups and shared tents with two or three of them. I was alone AND the only woman, so I had a tent all for myself, yay, at the outer edge of the circle. Furthest from the guards and nearest to the Great Outdoors.
Did I just say “Yay”?
Man, was I scared during those nights, hearing all sorts of strange sounds, imagining a lion quietly ripping up my tent with one of his nailsies and then devouring skinny me. Brrr….
Man, was I scared during those nights, hearing all sorts of strange sounds, imagining a lion quietly ripping up my tent with one of his nailsies and then devouring skinny me. Brrr….
And no way that I would leave my tent at night for a pee in the wild; I’d rather wet myself! Which I didn’t. But I gladly would have!;-)
Showering meant standing behind some improvised panels and basically pulling a rope to receive a bucket of cold water over your head. Four other panels stood around a hole in the ground which was the ‘restroom’ where your doings were being followed by cheeky monkeys in the surrounding trees. A person would get obstipated by less, I would say;-).
Showering meant standing behind some improvised panels and basically pulling a rope to receive a bucket of cold water over your head. Four other panels stood around a hole in the ground which was the ‘restroom’ where your doings were being followed by cheeky monkeys in the surrounding trees. A person would get obstipated by less, I would say;-).
During the days it was great though. We saw lions, rhino’s, hippo’s, elephants and what not during our three days in the wild park. Which was totally awesome!
Five years later I went hiking and camping around Ayers Rock in Australia. Again alone-in-a-group, but it was easy to connect and have a good time with the other hikers in that group.
It is a beautiful area there and I enjoyed my days in the Australian red, rocky desert. The heat was excruciating and the flies there are the most obnoxious on the planet, forcing us all to rapidly perfect the infamous Australian Wave;-).
At night I slept alone in my tent, again;-). This time there were no lions or rhinos to fear. Pfjew!
But man, Australia sure has it’s dangerous creatures!
Snakes (of which one tried to enter my tent through a tiny opening around the zipper), spiders (like the tarantula on my car window one day), lethal jellyfish (no, not in the desert…duh!) and the list goes on. Coming from a country where some miniature boars in the forest might be about as wild as it gets, the amount of ‘deadly wildlife’ was pretty impressive to me.
Snakes (of which one tried to enter my tent through a tiny opening around the zipper), spiders (like the tarantula on my car window one day), lethal jellyfish (no, not in the desert…duh!) and the list goes on. Coming from a country where some miniature boars in the forest might be about as wild as it gets, the amount of ‘deadly wildlife’ was pretty impressive to me.
Anyway, I (still) have zip-off pants and hiking boots. I just did not use them the last 15 years;-)…
Nowadays the most I will go for is some high end Glamping, if I must. With champagne and butler-service, please. Oh, and a jaccuzzi on the porch of my three-bedroom-tent.
But let’s move on to what this post is all about: Black’s Photo Competition.
Here are the pics of my Epic (or not) Adventures:
Wild.
|
| Dandelion fluff. Wildflower. The Netherlands. |
|
| These big birds circle the skies in India. They are huge. |
Fast.
|
| Canoing through the narrow canals of Kerala’s backwaters went anything but fast. It was magical. The lush greenery, the quiet, the slow pace, the shallow waters and wide open lakes are just fantastic and gorgeous! |
|
| Wild squirrel, Bali. These small creatures can act very fast, if they want to steal some food left for offerings at street altars. |
Panoramic.
|
| Grand Canyon at sunset. |
|
| During my flight from Amsterdam to Milano. |
Epic.
|
| After we painted some elephants, they went to a muddy big pool to wash the paint of. This handler played for at least 15 minutes with ‘his’ elephant in the water. The animal seemed to have a lot of fun. This picture tells a great story and watching this scene was quite epic for me. |
|
| Sunsets at Bali beaches are unparalleled and just epic. How beautiful is this?! |
Blacks.co.uk is a british travel gear company that collaborates with Explore.co.uk, a british adventure holiday company, for this competition. You can check out both their websites to find out more about them and about the competition. Closing date for the competitions is May 5th.
How about you? Are you an Epic Adventurour? Are camping, hiking and nature really ‘your thing’? What was your most wild, epic holiday?
How about you? Are you an Epic Adventurour? Are camping, hiking and nature really ‘your thing’? What was your most wild, epic holiday?
Wow! What stunning photos! The photo of the man with the elephant is incredible. Also the panoramic views are gorgeous. I hope you have those framed so you can enjoy them daily.
And interesting adventures! I really want to go on safari for my 50th. I’ve been talking about it for a while. But hopefully glamping style. I’m not one for peeing with monkeys. LOL
Epic and wild? Must be my European adventures. Run off the road by another vehicle while riding a moped in Portugal, badly injured, all bags lost/stolen between Spain and France so no clothes etc. I learned LOTS about myself during that time. Also caving in Australia freaked me out, but I loved it. You are right about all the scary creatures that live down under. Creepy.
bisous
Suzanne
Don’t have any of my own pics on my walls, but back in Haarlem I do have some photo albums with them in it.
Yes, a glamping safari sounds wayyyyy better! Where do you plan to go? South Africa? India?
OMG, if I can write a book about my life and adventures, you can easily fill ten!!! How did you ever find the time for all these countries, jobs, talents and experiences???! Amazing!
Badly injured; that’s not fun:-(. Were you hospitalized in Portugal?
Yes, but luckily I didn’t have to stay in the hospital which wasn’t much more than a dirt floored room really. They stitched me up without any pain killers or cleaning it and about two weeks later I had a raging infection in my arm because there was gravel imbedded in my arm. We came across a guy from…I want to say Peru?…in our travels that said he was training to be a Dr. and he cleaned the wound for me. I still have a large scar and black marks on my elbow from it.
I squeezed in a whole lot in my younger years. Now I’m so boring and sedate! LOL
We hope to go to South Africa. I have a friend in New Zealand that gave me the name of a very high class safari outfit…but it’s going to be hugely expensive.
Unbelievable, what a story and what a hospital!! Must be because it was many years ago and apparently not as well developed as nowadays….I hope?
I’m sure you know that you are anything but sedate and boring, right?!
I hope it will be worth the money then. Is it going to be part of a longer trip through South Africa? I mean: are you going to do and visit more then just the safari-park?
When I went (to Kenia I mean), although I enjoyed it a lot, it was a bit weird sometimes. In the sense that we drove through the park in a minivan with about 8 tourists, a driver and a guide. The drivers are all in contact with each other. As soon as one of them spots one lion, they inform each other. All the minivans quickly head over to that location. Resulting in 10 minivans with in total over 50 people ‘surrounding’ that one lion;-).
Had to brush that self-conscious SupaTourist feeling away more then once, in order to enjoy the wildlife. On the other hand, the flora and fauna around you should be spectacular enough to overcome that.
Hi! Your pictures are gorgeous! What kind of camera do you use? I also really love your fashion style. I am learning to dress for my body type - at age 52 I am 5’10”, average weight (140 pounds), long legs, short torso, with a rectangular combined with slight pear shape. I love a lot of color as well as the boho style. I’d love to know where you buy your clothes! Cris - in Texas
Hi Cris, I answered your questions in a personal email. Hope you received that in good order!
Here are my two cents…. I hate camping, I hate spiders, creepy crawly animals, I hate snakes and I know the awesome power of elephants, tigers, lions etc. Perhaps that is why I don’t go outside The Netherlands much. Luxury hotels … that is it for me.
And I think you have loads of good wild nature pictures to enter the competition with.
Greetje
I know, Greetje, you are even less adventurous in this sense then I am…hahaha…